Survey Data
Reg No
31213009
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Original Use
Hotel
Historical Use
House
Date
1840 - 1893
Coordinates
149543, 279597
Date Recorded
07/07/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Terraced four-bay three-storey hotel, extant 1893, originally with shopfront to right ground floor. Renovated, post-1912, with replacement shopfront inserted to ground floor. Refenestrated. Now disused. Pitched slate roof with clay ridge tiles terminating in rendered chimney stacks having stringcourses below capping supporting terracotta or yellow terracotta tapered pots, and replacement uPVC rainwater goods on rendered cut-limestone eaves retaining cast-iron octagonal or ogee hopper and downpipe. Rendered wall (ground floor) on rendered chamfered plinth; rendered, ruled and lined surface finish (upper floors) with rusticated rendered piers to corners. Rendered shopfront to ground floor. Square-headed window openings (upper floors) with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and moulded rendered surrounds framing replacement uPVC casement windows replacing one-over-one timber sash windows. Interior including (ground floor): entrance hall retaining timber surrounds to door openings framing timber panelled doors; reception room (north-west) retaining timber surround to door opening framing timber panelled door with timber panelled shutters to window opening; and (upper floors) timber surrounds to door openings framing timber panelled doors with timber panelled shutters to window openings. Street fronted with concrete footpath to front.
Appraisal
An hotel regarded as an integral component of the built heritage of Ballyhaunis with the architectural value of the composition, one annotated as "Commercial Hotel" on the second edition of the Ordnance Survey (surveyed 1893; published 1896), suggested by such attributes as the rectilinear plan form; and the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual effect with those openings showing sleek "stucco" refinements. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the historic or original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, including a Classically-detailed shopfront of artistic interest making a pleasing visual statement in the streetscape at street level: the introduction of replacement fittings to most of the openings, however, has not had a beneficial impact on the character or integrity of the composition.