Survey Data
Reg No
30930005
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Social, Technical
Previous Name
Killygar House
Original Use
Country house
In Use As
Country house
Date
1810 - 1815
Coordinates
225980, 306496
Date Recorded
25/06/2003
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached eight-bay two-storey country house, built in 1813, with basement level to rear elevation. Pitched slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and ashlar chimneystacks. Two-bay pedimented breakfront to principal south-east-facing elevation with projecting end bays. Rendered walls with tooled stone string course to breakfront and end bays. Square-headed window openings with tooled limestone sills and timber sash windows, round-headed in blind arched openings in end bays. Derelict brick and cut stone entrance porch to north-east-facing side elevation with timber sash windows and timber panelled double door in flat-headed opening with decorative doorcase flanked by side lights. Round-headed door opening with timber and glazed door to garden elevation flanked by engaged Tuscan columns flanked by windows. Wrought-iron railings to basement. Plan altered c.1940 with the removal of two rooms. Fire in 1970 destroyed many of the principal rooms in the house. Pedimented multiple-bay two-storey outbuilding to cobbled yard. Limestone ashlar gate piers give access to rear yard.
Appraisal
Constructed to a Classical design, Killegar House is a fine country house. The building expresses noteworthy architectural motifs, including a pedimented breakfront, symmetrical fenestration and a Tuscan doorcase. Its split-levelled plan gives the house an unusual character, with its principal elevation now being accessed from the garden. Though damaged by fire and altered during recent decades, the house remains exemplary of early nineteenth-century demesne architecture. Located at the end of a long driveway, which winds through lakeland, Killegar House and its finely-executed, though ruinous, outbuildings are a significant part of County Leitrim's architectural heritage.