Smithstown National School, County Kilkenny

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Detached five-bay single-storey national school, dated 1895, on a rectangular plan. Now disused. Pitched slate roof with clay ridge tiles, yellow brick Running bond chimney stacks having chamfered capping supporting yellow terracotta pots, timber bargeboards to gables on thumbnail beaded timber purlins, and cast-iron rainwater goods on exposed timber rafters on slightly overhanging timber boarded eaves retaining cast-iron downpipes. Rendered coursed or snecked limestone walls with concealed flush quoins to corners. Square-headed window openings centred on cut-limestone date stone ("1895") with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and concealed dressings framing timber casement windows. Square-headed door opening (east) with two cut-limestone steps, and concealed dressings framing timber boarded door having overlight. Interior including vestibule (east) with timber boarded wainscoting supporting timber dado rail; carved timber surrounds to door openings into classroom framing timber doors; full-height classroom (west) with timber boarded wainscoting supporting timber dado rail, and exposed Queen post timber roof construction. Set in landscaped grounds.

A national school erected to a standardised design produced by the Board of Public Works (established 1831) representing an integral component of the late nineteenth-century built heritage of County Kilkenny with the architectural value of the composition, one recalling the contemporary Gowran National School (1900) in Gowran (see 12310025), suggested by such attributes as the compact rectilinear plan form; and the decorative timber work embellishing the roofline. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior where an exposed Queen post timber roof construction pinpoints the modest engineering or technical dexterity of a national school making a pleasing visual statement in a sylvan street scene.

From the Buildings of Ireland (National Inventory of Architectural Heritage) record 12400613

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A.-K. D., Wikimedia Commons

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