Survey Data

Reg No

40504028


Original Use

House


In Use As

House


Date

1880 - 1885


Coordinates

216807, 411242


Date Recorded

01/12/2008


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Attached two-bay three-storey house with attic level, built c. 1885, having modern shopfront to ground. Altered, c. 1985, with single- and two-storey flat-roofed extensions with roughcast rendered walls to rear (west). Formerly a pair with building adjoining to the north (demolished c. 1995, and replaced with modern building). Pitched natural slate roof with modern skylights to west side, blue-black clay ridge tiles, projecting cut stone eaves course, and with cement rendered brick chimneystack to the south end having moulded stringcourse to top and projecting concrete cap over. Some remaining sections of cast-iron rainwater goods. Roughcast rendered walls with cement rendered and roughcast cement rendered wall to south gable end. Square-headed window openings with smooth rendered reveals, replacement windows, and rendered stone sills. Modern timber shopfront to front having square-headed window and door openings with modern fittings, fluted timber pilasters to either end with brackets over, and with timber fascia over having painted lettering. Square-headed door opening to the north end of the front elevation, giving access to upper floors, having modern timber panelled door. Road-fronted to the south-west end of Main Street, Letterkenny.

Appraisal

despite some alterations. This building is one of the few traditional buildings along Main Street, Letterkenny, that retains its early form and proportions. The loss of the original fabric to the openings detracts form its appeal and visual expression. The retention of the natural slate roof adds a satisfying patina of age at roofscape level. It dates to a period when Letterkenny was a thriving and expanding regional market town. It originally formed a pair of structures with a building adjoining to the north, now demolished. Buildings of this type were, until recent years, a ubiquitous feature of the streetscapes of Irish towns. However, most of these buildings have been insensitively altered or replaced, which makes this relatively intact example in Letterkenny an increasingly rare relatively intact surviving example of its type and date. This building makes a positive contribution to the streetscape to the south of the centre of Letterkenny, and is a modest addition to the built heritage of the town.