Survey Data
Reg No
60260029
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social
Previous Name
Kilternan School
Original Use
School
Date
1870 - 1875
Coordinates
320994, 221659
Date Recorded
07/11/2012
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three-bay two-storey school, built 1873, on a cruciform plan centred on single-bay single-storey gabled projecting porch to ground floor; single-bay (single-bay deep) full-height central return (west). In use, 1949. For sale, 2012. Now disused. Pitched slate roof on a T-shaped plan centred on pitched slate roof (west); pitched (gabled) slate roof (porch), clay ridge tiles, lichen-covered rendered coping to gables with red brick Running bond chimney stacks to apexes having stepped capping supporting yellow terracotta tapered pots, and replacement uPVC rainwater goods on cut-granite beaded consoles retaining cast-iron downpipes. Roughcast walls. Round-headed central window opening (porch) with concealed dressings framing fixed-pane fitting having margins. Square-headed opposing door openings ("cheeks") with concealed dressings framing timber boarded doors. Square-headed window openings with cut-granite sills, and concealed dressings framing two-over-two timber sash windows. Interior including (ground floor): vestibule; segmental-headed door opening into classroom with timber boarded double doors having overlight; classroom with carved timber surrounds to window openings framing timber panelled shutters; and (first floor): cast-iron Classical-style chimneypieces. Set back from road in landscaped grounds with roughcast piers to perimeter having rock faced cut-granite capping supporting iron double gates.
Appraisal
A school erected by Commander Thomas Crofton RN (d. 1879) of Golden Ball and Kilternan (Leslie 1934, 29) representing an integral component of the later nineteenth-century built heritage of south County Dublin with the architectural value of the composition, one showing a pronounced domestic theme, suggested by such attributes as the compact symmetrical plan form centred on an expressed porch; and the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression. A prolonged period of unoccupancy notwithstanding, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, thereby upholding the character or integrity of a school making a pleasing visual statement in a sylvan street scene.