In 1802 Edmund Ignatius Rice established a school in Waterford to provide a good education for Roman Catholic boys. This was successful and led to the opening of similar schools in Dungarvan, Carrick-on-Suir and Cork, before spreading gradually through the principal towns of Ireland. In 1820 the organisation was granted a charter by the Holy See in Rome, being recognised as a religious order under the title The Christian Brothers. Over time its work came to include primary and secondary education as well as industrial schools and orphanages, and it moved outside Ireland to set up schools in England, Australia, Newfoundland and elsewhere.
In 1857 the first Christian Brothers arrived in Drogheda and in the following year took over schools at West Gate. A year later they began the construction of two new schools at Sunday’s Gate, contained within the one building that opened for use in July 1860. This school was obviously a success and six years later it was raised a storey and divided into four schools that catered for between four and five hundred pupils.
Detail of Ordnance Survey map at 1:500 scale surveyed in 1870
The Brothers were sufficiently well established at the school that they decided to erect a monastery or convent to provide living accommodation. The lands to the south of the school were still in use as an orchard and were acquired for the purpose. The Brothers engaged one of the best-known architects of the day, George C Ashlin, to design the monastery and the resulting building, built by the construction firm of Alderman Thomas Connolly, was begun in 1867 and completed in the following year.
The Ordnance Survey produced a large scale map of Drogheda that was surveyed in 1870 and published in 1870 and a detail of this to show the school and monastery is shown above in Fig. 5. This shows that the houses on King Street and Magdalene Street were still in place and that both school and convent were built at the rear. This is not a result of the penal laws, as might be supposed, as the stipulation that non-Anglican churches and other premises could not face onto main roads had gone some about eighty years earlier.
The monastery was built in a gothic style and faced with chiselled limestone and red Belfast brick, with some polychrome brick. The centre of the building was three bays in width and was flanked by wings with two-bay gables to the front with pierced bargeboards.
In 1963 it was decided that after almost a century of use the monastery building needed to be refurbished and extended. Major works were carried out at this time, most obviously the extension of the building on either side. This was done very faithfully to the style of the original building, replicating the tripartite windows at ground floor level, the polychrome brick and the main red brick facade. At the same time very extensive alterations were carried out inside the building, including new plasterwork, cornices, ceiling roses, doors, skirtings and architraves. Some openings were stopped up and others opened, with the removal of a wall and the construction of other walls. The building was provided with a new electrical system and a new heating system.
With changes in the Christian Brothers and the role of the religious in teaching the Christian Brothers monastery became surplus to requirements and was disposed of by the order. The premises were subsequently opened as Scholars Hotel.
Record of Protected Structures
Scholars Hotel is a protected structure, being included in the Record of Protected Structures for Drogheda as St Laurence's Lodge, under reference DB-110. The building is described as "Seven-bay, two-storey red brick U-plan building with advanced two-bay gable ends. Former Christian Brothers school, by Pugin & Ashlin 1867" and is given a Regional rating for its architectural and artistic interest.
Declaration
On the 20th of December 2004 Drogheda Borough Council issued a declaration under section 56(3) of the Planning and Development Act 2000 in relation to the extent to which the building is protected. This declaration classified the original building as being of Regional significance, some of the extensions - namely the eastern and western wings, the extension to the rear of the eastern wing, and the two extensions in the corners between the original rear wings and the main building, as being of Local significance, while the remainder was deemed to be Record Only. The latter category included the laundry and Gents WC in the yard between the two original wings, together with various later alterations to the interior. The declaration then set down the types of works that would be considered to affect the character of each of these three categories and those changes that would not affect the character - again under the three categories of significance.
National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage was carried out for county Louth in 2005 and the results have been published. This includes Scholars Hotel and gives it a Regional rating for its Architectural, Artistic, Historical and Social interest. As with the Record of Protected Structures the NIAH erroneously described the building as a former school. The appraisal in the NIAH is as follows:
Designed by the well known and hugely admired architects Pugin and Ashlin, this is a very handsome example of a Christian Brothers School demonstrates all the confidence of the Roman Catholic Church in the late-Victorian period. Constructed of high-quality materials and replete with architectural detailing such as the splendid window surrounds and brickwork, the former school continues to play a vital role in the architectural heritage of Drogheda.