Survey Data
Reg No
15603175
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social
Original Use
House
In Use As
House
Date
1700 - 1840
Coordinates
297519, 140091
Date Recorded
13/06/2005
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached two- or three-bay two-storey house with dormer attic, extant 1840, on a square plan. Occupied, 1911. Pitched slate roof including hipped roofs to window openings to dormer attic, clay ridge tiles, rendered coping to gables with rendered chimney stacks to apexes having stringcourses below capping supporting terracotta or yellow terracotta pots, and cast-iron rainwater goods on rendered red brick header bond stepped eaves retaining cast-iron downpipes. Creeper- or ivy-covered rendered, ruled and lined battered walls. Segmental-headed central door opening approached by flight of six cut-granite steps between wrought iron railings, timber doorcase with panelled pilasters on padstones supporting cornice on blind frieze on fluted consoles, and moulded rendered surround framing timber panelled door having overlight. Square-headed window openings with cut-granite sills, and concealed dressings framing two-over-two timber sash windows. Interior including (ground floor): central hall retaining carved timber surrounds to door openings framing timber panelled doors; and carved timber surrounds to door openings to remainder framing timber panelled doors with carved timber surrounds to window openings framing timber panelled reveals or shutters. Set back from street in landscaped grounds with rendered, ruled and lined piers to perimeter having ball finial-topped stepped capping supporting wrought iron double gates.
Appraisal
A house representing an integral component of the domestic built heritage of Enniscorthy with the architectural value of the composition suggested by such attributes as the compact rectilinear plan form centred on a Classically-detailed doorcase demonstrating good quality workmanship; the battered silhouette; the somewhat disproportionate bias of solid to void in the massing compounded by the slight diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a feint graduated visual impression; and the high pitched roofline. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, thus upholding the character or integrity of a house forming part of a self-contained group alongside the adjoining Abbey Cottage (see 15603174) with the resulting ensemble making a pleasing visual statement in Templeshannon. NOTE: Occupied (1911) by James Donohoe (d. 1916), 'Magistrate [and] Merchant [of] Coal Timber &c. &c. late of Abbey House Enniscorthy County Wexford' (Calendars of Wills and Administrations 1917, 190).