Survey Data
Reg No
15704412
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Original Use
Lighthouse keeper's house
In Use As
House
Date
1835 - 1840
Coordinates
272685, 109094
Date Recorded
21/01/2008
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three-bay single-storey lighthouse keeper's house with half-dormer attic, built 1838, on a rectangular plan. Occupied, 1901; 1911. Vacated, 1971. Sold, 1991. Pitched slate roof with ridge tiles, coping to gables with rendered chimney stacks to apexes having paired stringcourses below capping supporting louvered terracotta pots, and cast-iron rainwater goods on limewashed cut-granite eaves retaining cast-iron downpipes. Limewashed slate hung battered walls on rendered plinth; rendered surface finish (gables). Square-headed central door opening with cut-granite step threshold, and concealed dressings framing timber boarded door. Square-headed flanking window openings with cut-granite sills, and concealed dressings framing six-over-six timber sash windows. Square-headed window openings (south) with cut-granite sills, and concealed dressings framing three-over-three timber sash windows. Interior including (ground floor): central hall retaining timber surrounds to door openings framing timber panelled doors; and timber surrounds to door openings to remainder framing timber panelled doors with timber surrounds to window openings framing timber panelled splayed reveals or shutters. Set in grounds shared with Duncannon North Lighthouse.
Appraisal
A lighthouse keeper's house erected to designs by George Halpin Senior (1776-1854), Inspector of Works and Lighthouses for the Ballast Board (appointed 1810), representing an important component of the built heritage of south County Wexford with the architectural value of the composition, one recalling contemporary houses at Inishowen in County Donegal; and Inisheer off County Galway, confirmed by such attribute as the compact rectilinear plan form centred on a featureless doorcase; the feint battered silhouette; the disproportionate bias of solid to void in the massing; and the high pitched roof. Having been well maintained, the form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, including a limewashed slate hung surface finish, thus upholding the character or integrity of a lighthouse keeper's house forming part of a self-contained group alongside the adjacent Duncannon North Lighthouse (see 15704411) with the resulting ensemble making a pleasing visual statement on a wooded hillside overlooking Waterford Harbour. NOTE: Occupied (1901) by William Dunne (----) 'Lighthouse Keeper' (NA 1901); and (1911) by Richard Cunnian (1859-1917), 'Light Keeper' (NA 1911).