Survey Data
Reg No
31310017
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Previous Name
Carrownacon School
Original Use
School
Date
1845 - 1855
Coordinates
119671, 276118
Date Recorded
15/01/2013
Date Updated
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Description
Detached three-bay (two-bay deep) two-storey national school, built 1850[?]; extant 1894, on a T-shaped plan centred on single-bay full-height "bas-relief" breakfront with single-bay single-storey gabled projecting porch to ground floor. In use, 1911. "In good repair", 1976. Now disused. Hipped slate roof with pitched (gabled) slate roof to porch, clay ridge tiles, and remains of cast-iron rainwater goods on cut-limestone eaves retaining cast-iron downpipes. Part creeper- or ivy-covered rendered walls. Square-headed window openings with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and concealed dressings framing six-over-six timber sash windows. Set in unkempt grounds on a slightly elevated site with ivy-covered tooled limestone ashlar piers to perimeter having overgrown capping.
Appraisal
A dilapidated national school allegedly erected by the Blakes of nearby Towerhill House regarded as an integral component of the nineteenth-century built heritage of south County Mayo with the architectural value of the composition, one annotated as "Carrownacon School" on the second edition of the Ordnance Survey (surveyed 1894; published 1896), confirmed by such traits as the compact symmetrical plan from centred on an expressed, albeit later porch; and the uniform or near-uniform proportions of the openings on each floor. A prolonged period of neglect notwithstanding, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, thereby upholding much of the character or integrity of a national school making a pleasing, if increasingly forlorn visual statement in a sylvan street scene.