Survey Data
Reg No
13312020
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social
Original Use
Worker's house
In Use As
House
Date
1860 - 1870
Coordinates
220176, 268619
Date Recorded
22/07/2005
Date Updated
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Description
Semi-detached three-bay single-storey former estate worker's house on L-shaped plan, built c. 1863, with central advanced gabled porch to main elevation (south) and single-storey return to the rear (north) having hipped slate roof. Now in use as private house. Pitched slate roofs with decorative red brick chimneystacks and scalloped pierced bargeboards to the gables. Snecked rock-faced limestone walls over limestone plinth with dressed limestone quoins to the corners. Square-headed window openings with dressed limestone block-and-start surrounds with carved detail to lintels, stone sills, and metal frame windows with pivoting panes. Square-headed window openings to the rear with brick dressings. Pointed segmental arch entrance opening, having dressed limestone block-and-start surround and replacement timber door. Trefoil to porch gable with dressed limestone surround. Accessed via stone step. Landscaped gardens to front and west, with snecked rock-faced limestone boundary wall with chamfered dressed limestone coping and wrought-iron gate. Yard to rear, with outbuildings having hipped and pitched slate roofs, cast-iron rainwater goods, snecked stone walls, and square- and segmental-headed openings with timber battened doors. Snecked rock-faced stone boundary wall to rear (north) with wrought-iron gate. Located to the west of the centre of Ardagh.
Appraisal
This attractive building retains its early form and character, and is a fine example of its period. It is characteristic of Victorian estate architecture, which is relatively rare in Ireland. This building also retains much of its original fabric, including pierced bargeboards and metal quarry glazed windows. It dates from a specific period of rebuilding and restructuring of the village of Ardagh in the early 1860s. It was erected to designs by the architect James Rawson Carroll (1830 – 1911), who carried out various works at Ardagh for Sir Thomas Fetherston (between c. 1860 – 1865) in order to improve the village as a memorial to his uncle, Sir George Fetherston. It is one of a number of houses, of varying designs, in the village of Ardagh that collectively represent one of the most interesting collections of its type in north Leinster. The simple but well-built boundary wall, the outbuildings and the wrought-iron gates complete the setting and to this composition.