Survey Data
Reg No
12000190
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Original Use
Railway station
Date
1845 - 1850
Coordinates
251130, 156198
Date Recorded
16/06/2004
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Remains of railway station complex, opened 1847, including: (i) Detached eleven-bay double-height yellow brick Classical-style screen wall. Remodelled, 1865-8. Closed, post-2001. Remainder of railway station demolished, 2004-5. Yellow brick Flemish bond walls with cut-limestone dressings including stringcourse, carved (moulded) cornice, and coping to parapet. Series of round-headed openings originally forming arcade with cut-limestone stringcourse to spring of arches, and yellow brick voussoirs (now blocked-up with concrete block infill). Set back from road on a slightly elevated site.
Appraisal
The remains of a once-extensive Classically-detailed railway station built as a terminus to designs prepared by Captain William Scarth Moorsom (1804-63) as modified by Sancton Wood (c.1814-86) who was also responsible for subsequent modifications to adapt the building to use as a through-line station. The construction in yellow brick produces a distinctive palette while refined dressings in County Kilkenny limestone displaying expert masonry enhance the design aesthetic of the composition. Positioned on slightly elevated grounds on an important corner site the collective complex (including 12000192 - 3/KK-4766-09-192 - 3 and 12006003/KK-4766-10-03) forms a prominent landmark in the townscape of Kilkenny. The station remains of particular importance for the associations with the development of the Waterford and Maryborough [Portlaoise] Branch extension of the Great Southern and Western Railway line by the Kilkenny Junction Railway Company.