Survey Data
Reg No
12003024
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social
Original Use
Church/chapel
In Use As
Hostel (charitable)
Date
1865 - 1870
Coordinates
250239, 156449
Date Recorded
27/07/2004
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached five-bay double-height over raised-basement single-cell private Catholic chapel, built 1868. Extensively renovated, 1994, to accommodate use as hostel. Hipped and pitched slate roof with clay ridge tiles, rendered chimney stack, and replacement uPVC rainwater goods, 1994, on squared limestone eaves. Broken coursed squared limestone walls part repointed, 1994, with cut-limestone stringcourse to ground floor. Square-headed window openings to basement with cut-stone sills, red brick block-and-start surrounds, and replacement uPVC casement windows, 1994. Pointed-arch window openings to nave with cut-limestone surrounds having chamfered reveals, cut-limestone voussoirs, carved timber mullions forming bipartite trefoil-headed arrangement with quatrefoils to arches, and fixed-pane fittings having some pivot lights. Full-height interior open into roof with tongue-and-groove timber panelled wainscoting, trefoil timber panelled gallery to first floor on cast-iron Corinthian colonettes, and vaulted ceiling having decorative plasterwork ribs resting on decorative corbels. Set back from road in shared grounds.
Appraisal
A well-composed middle-size chapel representing an element of the expansion of the Saint James's Park House complex on site in the mid to late nineteenth century following the transferral of a Loreto order to Kilkenny from Borris-in-Ossory in nearby County Laois. Sparsely detailed the external expression of the composition is enlivened by attributes including the red brick dressings to the basement level introducing an element of polychromy to an otherwise muted palette, the elegantly-proportioned openings to the nave incorporating finely-carved timber fittings, and so on. Although now serving an alternative use many of the internal features survive in place including decorative plasterwork accents exhibiting good quality craftsmanship identifying the artistic design importance of the site.