Belmont Old School, Marcus Patton

Belmont Old School

The distinctive tower of Belmont School is a landmark in East Belfast. The school was built about 1890 to designs by Vincent Craig, but a new school was built alongside it in the 1990s.The old building was saved from demolition when some parents of children at the primary school formed the Old Belmont School Preservation Trust in 2001 and restored the building as a community asset. It is now owned by the National Trust.

Marcus Patton, a past director and chairman of Belfast Print Workshop, was born in Enniskillen and studied architecture at Queen’s University, Belfast.

Patton’s work ranges from pen-and- ink drawings to watercolours, often of architectural subjects, and from concert posters-about 400 to date, many hand-printed in silk-screen-to caricatures. He has completed commissions for the Linen Hall Library, Belfast, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and for the White House, creating the poster marking President Clinton’s visit to Belfast in 2000. He was awarded the OBE in 1995.