Survey Data
Reg No
31306003
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Previous Name
Pontoon Police Station
Original Use
Garda station/constabulary barracks
Historical Use
Building misc
In Use As
House
Date
1807 - 1838
Coordinates
120495, 303662
Date Recorded
24/11/2010
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three-bay two-storey police station, extant 1838, on a symmetrical plan. Occupied, 1901. Vacant, 1908. Occupied, 1911. Renovated, 2001, to accommodate continued occasional use. Hipped slate roof with clay ridge tiles, rendered central chimney stacks including rendered buttressed "wallhead" chimney stack (west) having stringcourses below stepped capping supporting yellow terracotta tapered pots, and cast-iron rainwater goods on timber eaves boards on cut-limestone eaves retaining cast-iron downpipes. Part repointed coursed or snecked rubble limestone walls with cut-limestone flush quoins to corners. Square-headed central door opening below tooled cut-limestone shield panel with drag edged tooled cut-limestone block-and-start surround framing timber boarded double doors. Square-headed window openings originally in tripartite arrangement with drag edged tooled cut-limestone sills, and tooled cut-limestone voussoirs framing replacement two-over-two timber sash windows replacing two-over-two timber sash windows having horizontal glazing bars. Set in landscaped grounds on an elevated site with boundary wall to perimeter having rubble limestone coping.
Appraisal
A police station representing an important component of the early nineteenth-century built heritage of Pontoon with the architectural value of the composition confirmed by such attributes as the compact rectilinear plan form centred on a "sparrow pecked" doorcase demonstrating good quality workmanship in a silver-grey limestone; and the somewhat disproportionate bias of solid to void in the massing compounded by the very slight diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a feint graduated visual impression with those openings originally showing elegant tripartite glazing patterns. Having been well maintained, the form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, thus upholding the character or integrity of a police station forming part of a self-contained group alongside an adjacent hotel (see 31306002) with the resulting ensemble making a pleasing visual statement on a wooded hillside overlooking Lough Cullin. NOTE: Occupied (1901) by Sergeant Joseph Dusting (1858-1915) who later retired to Quay House in Newport (see 31208003; NA 1901; Calendars of Wills and Administrations 1915, 198); and (1911) by Michael Roche (----) who was gamekeeper for Lord Lucan and later for Lord Clanmorris (NA 1911).