Survey Data

Reg No

31204035


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Historical, Social


Original Use

Outbuilding


Historical Use

Shop/retail outlet


Date

1735 - 1745


Coordinates

124484, 318996


Date Recorded

10/12/2008


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Remains of Ballina Military Barracks, built 1740; extant 1786, on a quadrangular plan including (west): Façade of detached five-bay two-storey coach house-cum-stable outbuilding[?] on a symmetrical plan. Renovated to accommodate alternative use. Now disused. Replacement hipped fibre-cement slate roof with clay ridge tiles, and cast-iron rainwater goods on cut-limestone eaves retaining cast-iron downpipe. Roughcast walls with drag edged dragged cut-limestone quoins to corners. Series of three segmental-headed central carriageways (ground floor) with drag edged dragged cut-limestone block-and-start archivolts centred on keystones framing replacement fixed-pane timber fittings. Square-headed window openings (first floor) with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and drag edged dragged cut-limestone block-and-start surrounds centred on triple keystones framing timber casement windows. Set in own grounds with tarmacadam carpark to parade ground.

Appraisal

The façade of a coach house-cum-stable outbuilding surviving as an important relic of the eighteenth-century Ballina Military Barracks complex, 'a spacious edifice…with two large and noble squares of offices in the rear [and] one of the most elegant and useful gardens in the kingdom' (Wilson 1786, 109), with the architectural value of the composition confirmed by such attributes as the symmetrical frontage centred on an elegant arcade; and the dramatic diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression with those openings showing robust dressings demonstrating good quality workmanship.