Survey Data
Reg No
31204081
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social
Original Use
Manse
Historical Use
Guest house/b&b
Date
1845 - 1855
Coordinates
124680, 318980
Date Recorded
09/12/2008
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached two-bay three-storey Presbyterian manse, built 1850-1. Occupied, 1911. Refenestrated. Now disused[?] pitched slate roof with clay ridge tiles, concrete or rendered coping to gables with rendered chimney stacks to apexes having stringcourses below capping supporting terracotta pots, and replacement uPVC rainwater goods on eaves boards on rendered eaves. Part creeper- or ivy-covered rendered walls on rendered chamfered plinth with rendered "bas-relief" stringcourse. Square-headed window openings with dragged cut-limestone sills[?], and concealed dressings framing replacement uPVC casement windows replacing six-over-six or six-over-three (top floor) timber sash windows. Street fronted.
Appraisal
A manse erected under the aegis of Reverend Thomas Armstrong (d. 1895) representing an important component of the mid nineteenth-century built heritage of Ballina with the architectural value of the composition, 'a comfortable [house]' (Killen 1886, 245-6), suggested by such attributes as the compact plan form; and the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior: the introduction of replacement fittings to most of the openings, however, has not had a beneficial impact on the character or integrity of a manse forming part of a neat self-contained group alongside an adjoining church (1850-1; see 31204080) with the resulting ensemble making a pleasing visual statement in Walsh Street.