Reg No
20807016
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Social
Original Use
Market house
In Use As
Office
Date
1840 - 1850
Coordinates
150050, 113517
Date Recorded
27/08/2006
Date Updated
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Detached three-bay two-storey former market house, built 1845, having gable-fronted central bay, and two-storey extension to rear. Now in use as offices. Overhanging pitched slate roof with cut limestone chimneystacks and replacement uPVC eaves and rainwater goods. Snecked tooled limestone walls, snecked rubble to west gable, with carved stone blind oculus to gable-front. Square-headed window openings with cut limestone voussoirs and sills having replacement double six-over-six pane timber sliding sash windows to first floor of central bay and single to other first floor windows. Elliptical entrance arch having cut limestone voussoirs, imposts, and replacement double-leaf timber battened doors, with keystone with date 1845 in raised numerals. Square-headed door openings to end bays of front elevation, with replacement double-leaf timber battened doors and overlights. Random rubble limestone boundary walls and piers to site.
This elegant market house of balanced proportions was constructed by Sir Edward Tierney, land agent to the Earls of Egmont, in 1845. The early nineteenth century was a period of much renewal in Churchtown when a great number of civic buildings were added to the town. These civic buildings were finely crafted stone structures of a similar scale and construction to this market house, such as the schoolhouse located on the adjoining site and the former Parson's House on the other side of the crossroads. The proportioning of the façade of the schoolhouse is remarkably similar to the façade of the market house, the gable-front and arched opening of the latter being the only features distinguishing its status as a public building. The pleasing character of the village is largely the result of the survival of these buildings.