Survey Data
Reg No
40000094
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Previous Name
Cavan County Library
Original Use
Library/archive
Historical Use
School
In Use As
Office
Date
1930 - 1940
Coordinates
241881, 304974
Date Recorded
13/06/2012
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached three-bay three-storey former library and school, built 1935, with three-storey return to rear. Now in use as offices. Flat roof with parapet, rendered chimneystacks to party walls, and cast-iron rainwater goods. Roughcast rendered walls with rusticated smooth-rendered piers with flat fluted capitals and stepped platbands forming cornice. Parapet as panelled blocking course with smooth rendered edges. Eight-over-eight timber sliding sash windows with stone sills, some six-over-six timber sliding sashes and bipartite four-over-four timber sliding sash windows to north side elevation. Square-headed opening with recessed glazed double-leaf door, multi-pane overlight and rendered jambs. Cast-iron railings and gates to boundary with street. Two-storey office accommodation to rear added c.1940.
Appraisal
The building is an important example of a successful twentieth-century insertion to Farnham Street. The symmetry of the design and the simple finish complement the earlier historical architecture of the street. Alongside windows of historic design, the building displays contemporary detailing such as the elongated piers and linear banding to the parapet, characteristic motifs of the stripped classical architecture popular in the 1930s. It has played an important social role in both town and county