Survey Data
Reg No
40502222
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Previous Name
Letterkenny Union Workhouse
Original Use
Workhouse administration block
In Use As
Museum/gallery
Date
1840 - 1845
Coordinates
217025, 411915
Date Recorded
01/12/2008
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached five-bay two-storey union workhouse "Front Block", built 1842-4; dated 1843; opened 1845, on a H-shaped plan with single-bay two-storey gabled advanced end bays. Renovated, 1990-1, to accommodate alternative use. Pitched slate roof on a H-shaped plan centred on gablets, clay ridge tiles, cut-limestone chamfered coping to gables on margined tooled cut-sandstone kneelers, and cast-iron rainwater goods on timber eaves boards on exposed timber rafters with cast-iron downpipes. Repointed coursed rough cut rubble stone walls on cut-sandstone chamfered cushion course on plinth with margined tooled cut-limestone flush quoins to corners; rendered surface finish to rear (west) elevation. Tudor-headed central door opening below inscribed cut-sandstone plaque ("1843") with cut-limestone threshold, and cut-sandstone surround having chamfered reveals with hood moulding framing timber panelled double doors. Square-headed flanking window openings with cut-limestone sills, and cut-sandstone surrounds having chamfered reveals with hood mouldings framing timber casement windows. Square-headed window openings (first floor) with cut-limestone sills, and cut-sandstone block-and-start surrounds having chamfered reveals framing timber casement windows. Square-headed window openings to rear (west) elevation with cut-limestone sills, and concealed dressings framing six-over-six timber sash windows. Set back from line of street on a slightly elevated site.
Appraisal
The "Front Block" of a union workhouse erected to designs by George Wilkinson (1814-90), Architect to the Poor Law Commissioners in Ireland (appointed 1839; retired 1855), representing an important component of the mid nineteenth-century built heritage of Letterkenny with the architectural value of the composition, one recalling contemporary "Front Blocks" at Ballyshannon Union Workhouse (1841-2; see 40852075) and Donegal Union Workhouse (1841-2; see 40843032), confirmed by such attributes as the symmetrical footprint centred on a neo-medieval doorcase; the uniform or near uniform proportions of the openings on each floor; the restrained dressings demonstrating good quality workmanship in a creamy-coloured Mountcharles sandstone allegedly obtained from the quarries of Francis Nathaniel Conyngham (1797-1876); and the miniature gablets embellishing a high pitched roof. NOTE: The Letterkenny Poor Law Union was formed on the 26th June 1841 and was overseen by Board of Guardians of twenty-one elected members and seven ex officio members who convened at noon each Friday. Letterkenny Union Workhouse occupied a site of six acres and, designed to accommodate 500 inmates, was completed at a cost of £6,450. An additional £1,475 was spent on fixtures and furnishings. Letterkenny Union Workhouse was declared fit for the admission of paupers on the 16th December 1844 and received its first inmates on the 14th March 1845. The 1901 Census names ninety-nine inmates while the 1911 Census names seventy-two inmates: the Master of the Workhouse is named on both occasions as Alexander Leckey (d. 1915). The Board of Guardians of the Letterkenny Poor Law Union was officially abolished on the 14th July 1923 and the "Front Block" was adapted (1927) as a fever hospital for the County Donegal Board of Health to designs by William James Doherty (1887-1951) of Derry (Irish Builder 16th April 1927, 281). The "Front Block" was later repurposed as Saint Anne's Maternity Hospital (1954-60) and as offices for Letterkenny Urban District Council (1960-87). The "Front Block" was then given over to Donegal County Museum (1987) and was subject to renovation and repair (1990-1). The accommodation block of Letterkenny Union Workhouse, repurposed as a bottling plant by Lymac Limited (1938-65), was demolished to make way for Letterkenny Garda Síochána Station (1989).