Survey Data
Reg No
50070047
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Original Use
Building misc
In Use As
Building misc
Date
1950 - 1955
Coordinates
313979, 235198
Date Recorded
09/12/2012
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached three-bay two-storey parish office, built 1951, attached to north-west corner of the Church of the Holy Family or Saint Gabriel, built 1876. Pitched slate roof, with concrete coping to gables and cross finial. Snecked rock-faced rusticated limestone walls. Carved limestone date plaque to north-east elevation. Quatrefoil window with carved limestone surround to gables. Square-headed window openings to first floor, paired with chamfered granite surrounds with central mullion and sloped sills, timber sash windows having one-over-one panes. Tripartite window openings to gables, having central paired or triple windows having two-over-one panes flanked by lower paired windows with one-over-one panes. Paired pointed window openings to ground floor, having chamfered granite surrounds with central mullion and sloped sills, and one-over-one pane timber sash windows. Accessed from sacristy to south-east, built during extension of church in 1902.
Appraisal
The Church of the Holy Family or Saint Gabriel was completed in 1876 facing south-west to Aughrim Street. The church was enlarged in 1902 to accommodate the growing population of the area. Saint Joseph’s, a two-storey extension was added to the north-west of the sacristy in 1951, designed by Jones and Kelly in a manner designed to blend in with the older building. It is a relatively late example of such elaborate stonework, as increasing labour costs made such highly skilled work prohibitively expensive. Alfred Jones and Stephen Kelly were primarily engaged in ecclesiastical and educational work but also designed public housing, cinemas, theatres, commercial and industrial buildings. Saint Joseph’s contains a parish office on the ground floor and a large meeting room on the first floor. It is part of a larger ecclesiastical group which includes the Church of the Holy Family, Saint Gabriel’s school on Cowper Street, and a parochial house to the south-west.