Survey Data
Reg No
15605004
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural
Original Use
Malt house
Date
1842 - 1881
Coordinates
271874, 127658
Date Recorded
21/06/2005
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached four-bay five-storey hipped gable-fronted malthouse, extant 1881, on a rectangular plan. Undergoing "restoration", 2005-6, to accommodate proposed alternative use. Replacement hipped gable-fronted slate roof. Part repointed coursed rubble stone walls with cut-granite quoins to corners centred on cut-limestone date stone ("1899"). Round-headed door opening with cut-granite block-and-start surround framing replacement corrugated-iron fitting. Square-headed window openings (upper floors) with red brick block-and-start surrounds framing fixed-pane timber fittings. Quay fronted with concrete footpath to front.
Appraisal
A malthouse 'PURCHASED BY P.J. [Patrick James] ROCHE [1818-1905]' representing an important component of the mid nineteenth-century industrial heritage of New Ross with the architectural value of the composition confirmed by such attributes as the elongated rectilinear plan form; the construction in unrefined local fieldstone with granite or red brick dressings producing a pleasing palette; and the uniform or near-uniform proportions of the openings on each floor. Having been reasonably well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric: however, an unfinished "restoration" may determine the ongoing architectural heritage status of the malthouse forming part of a self-contained group alongside an adjoining grain store or warehouse (see 15605005) with the resulting ensemble making a pleasing visual statement in North Quay. NOTE: Recent testing (2003) has uncovered 'an assembly of medieval pottery [and] a stone-lined drain probably seventeenth-century in date' [SMR WX029-013014-].