Description
Detached two-bay single-storey rubble stone Tudor-style former Church of Ireland school, c.1860, retaining original fenestration with single-bay single-storey gabled advanced porch to right. Extended, c.1990, comprising single-bay single-storey return to rear to north-east. Now disused. Gable-ended roof with slate (gabled to porch). Clay ridge tiles. Cut-stone chimney stack with polygonal flue. Cut-stone coping to gables. Cast-iron rainwater goods on cut-stone corbelled eaves course. Gable-ended roof to return. Corrugated-iron. Rendered chimney stack. uPVC rainwater goods. Polygonal rubble limestone walls (possibly repointed, c.1990). Chamfered corners to porch. Cement rendered walls to return. Ruled and lined. Unpainted. Rendered quoins. Paired shallow segmental-headed window opening in cut-stone surround with hood moulding over (single window opening to porch with similar blind opening to gable to side elevation to north-west). Diamond-leaded fixed-pane iron windows. Shallow elliptical-headed door opening to porch. Moulded cut-stone surround. Timber door. Square-headed window opening to return. Concrete sill. Timber shutters. Interior with early fireplace and timber panelled doors. Set back from road in own grounds. Overgrown grounds to site. Section of decorative cast-iron railings, c.1860, to boundary on cut-stone plinth with foliate finials.
Appraisal
Geraldine Hall, designed by E. McAlister and originally built as a Church of Ireland School, is of considerable social and historical significance as one of the earliest educational facilitates in the locality, and one sponsored by a church body. Now disused, the former school nevertheless retains most of its original form and character – inappropriately extended in the late twentieth century an alternative use might be found for the building that could be contained solely in the original portion of the school, thus allowing the removal of the later addition. The construction of the former school in rubble limestone attests to the high quality of stone masonry traditionally practised in the locality – this is especially evident in the cut-stone dressings to the window openings, and so on, that have retained a crisp intricacy – while the pattern of the polygonal stone arrangement allows for an attractive rhythmic effect. The former school retains many important early or original features and materials, in various states of repair, including diamond-leaded fenestration, timber fittings to the door opening and a slate roof, together with fittings to the interior. Set in its own grounds, the school is an attractive, if subtle, feature on the streetscape of Leinster Street and represents a component of the development of that street throughout the nineteenth century
Exert from https://www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/11803093/geraldine-hall-leinster-street-maynooth-maynooth-kildare
“Description
Detached two-bay single-storey school, built 1860, on an L-shaped plan with single-bay single-storey gabled projecting lower porch. Adapted to alternative use, 1935. Disused, 2002. Pitched slate roof; pitched (gabled) slate roof (porch), roll moulded ridge tiles, cut-limestone coping to gables on cut-limestone “Cavetto” kneelers including cut-limestone coping to gable (north) on cut-limestone “Cavetto” kneelers with cut-limestone octagonal chimney stack to apex having cut-limestone capping, and cast-iron rainwater goods on cut-limestone “Cavetto” consoles with cast-iron downpipes. Repointed rubble limestone walls on cut-limestone chamfered plinth with tooled rough cut limestone flush quoins to corners including tooled rough cut limestone chamfered quoins to corners (porch). Elliptical-headed door opening (porch) with cut-limestone step, and reclaimed rough cut limestone surround having moulded reveals framing timber boarded door. Lancet window openings (“cheeks”) with cut-limestone surrounds having chamfered reveals framing casement windows having lattice glazing bars. Elliptical-headed window opening in bipartite arrangement (north), cut limestone surrounds having chamfered reveals with hood moulding framing casement windows having lattice glazing bars. Elliptical-headed window opening in bipartite arrangement (south), reclaimed rough cut limestone surround having chamfered reveals with hood moulding framing casement windows having lattice glazing bars. Set back from street with remains of cast-iron railings to perimeter.
Appraisal
A school erected for Augustus Frederick FitzGerald (1791-1874), third Duke of Leinster, to designs signed (1860) by Edward McAllister (1836-64) of Charlemont Place, Dublin (IAA 1/94/R/5-10), representing an integral component of the mid nineteenth-century built heritage of Maynooth with the architectural value of the composition, one erected in tandem with works (1858-9) to nearby Saint Mary’s Church (Laraghbryan) which included the removal of a school room used by the Church Education Society (see 11803100), suggested by such attributes as the compact plan form; the construction in an “opus incertum”-like polygonal fieldstone with sheer limestone dressings demonstrating good quality workmanship; the doorcase allegedly reclaimed from ‘the Earl of Kildare’s Council House which formed part of the Maynooth Castle complex’ [SMR KD005-014—-]; the bipartite openings showing pretty lattice or quarry glazing patterns; and the high pitched roof. NOTE: The cost of running the school in 1891 was £51 6s. 6d., including a salary of £36 for the teacher, to which the Duke and Duchess of Leinster contributed £10. The cost of running the school increased to £58 11s. 10d. by 1907 but had decreased to £37 5s. 9d. by 1927 when student numbers began to dwindle. The school was subsequently adapted (1935) and extended (1941) as an assembly hall and social club.”