1953 – Former Garvagh High School, Garvagh, Co. Derry

The school was built in the early 1950s as a result of the education act of 1947, which set out to modernise the aging educational fabric in Northern Ireland, and was the first rural school of that era to be built. The school was built at a cost of more than £107,000 to designs by Noel Campbell, County Education Architect. The school building, approximately 50,000 sq.ft, is single storey, comprising a quadrangular layout of four inter-connected blocks positioned around a central open-air courtyard. Linking corridors were originally covered walkways with open sides but have since been fully closed in.

The classrooms are generally lighted by windows on two sides, as well as clerestory windows over. These classrooms were given an ‘informal character’ by the provision of chalk boards on the long wall, omitting division walls between classrooms and stores and architect-designed built-in furniture constructed of wood and plastic veneer. The tank tower next to the entrance was embellished with a county crest modelled and coloured by the architect himself. The school closed on 31 August 2013 due to a steady decline in numbers attending. The main building retains listed status as one of Northern Ireland’s finest examples of 1950s school architecture.