Survey Data
Reg No
13312019
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social
Original Use
Worker's house
In Use As
House
Date
1860 - 1870
Coordinates
220190, 268620
Date Recorded
22/07/2005
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Semi-detached four-bay single-storey former estate worker's house, built c. 1863, with advanced gabled bay to the west end of the main façade (south) and gabled porch offset to the centre. Now in use as private house. Single-storey return to the rear (north) with hipped slate roof. Pitched slate roofs with decorative red brick chimneystacks and scalloped pierced bargeboards to the gables. Snecked rock-faced limestone walls over limestone plinth with dressed limestone quoins to the corners. Square-headed window openings with dressed limestone block-and-start surrounds with carved detail to lintels, stone sills, and replacement windows. Square-headed window openings to the rear with brick dressings. Pointed segmental-arch entrance opening, having dressed limestone block-and-start surround and timber battened door. Accessed via stone step. Trefoil to porch gable with dressed limestone surround. Landscaped gardens to front and east, with snecked rock-faced limestone boundary wall with chamfered dressed limestone coping and wrought-iron gate. Yard to rear, with outbuildings having hipped and pitched slate roofs, cast-iron rainwater goods, snecked stone walls, and square- and segmental-headed openings with timber battened doors. Snecked rock-faced stone boundary wall to rear (north) with wrought-iron gate. Located to the west of the centre of Ardagh.
Appraisal
This attractive building retains its early form and character, and is a fine example of its period. It is characteristic of Victorian estate architecture, which is relatively rare in Ireland. This building also retains much of its original fabric, including pierced bargeboards, although it has lost its original quarry glazed windows. It dates from a specific period of rebuilding and restructuring of the village of Ardagh in the early 1860s. It was erected to designs by the architect James Rawson Carroll (1830 – 1911), who carried out various works at Ardagh for Sir Thomas Fetherston (between c. 1860 – 1865) in order to improve the village as a memorial to his uncle, Sir George Fetherston. It is one of a number of houses, of varying designs, in the village of Ardagh that collectively represent one of the most interesting collections of its type in north Leinster. The rear outbuildings are significant, and were probably built as a stable/coach house, a laundry room, and a toilet. The simple but well-built boundary wall and the wrought-iron gates complete the setting and to this composition.