Survey Data
Reg No
31209024
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social
Original Use
House
In Use As
Shop/retail outlet
Date
1700 - 1838
Coordinates
114552, 290421
Date Recorded
05/07/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Terraced three-bay three-storey townhouse, extant 1838. Renovated with replacement shopfront inserted to ground floor. One of a pair. Replacement pitched fibre-cement slate roof with ridge tiles terminating in cement rendered chimney stack having concrete capping, and cast-iron rainwater goods on timber eaves boards on dragged cut-limestone "Cyma Recta" or "Cyma Reversa" cornice retaining cast-iron downpipe. Tuck pointed coursed or snecked limestone walls. Segmental-headed door opening with cut-limestone step threshold, and drag edged rusticated cut-limestone surround supporting open bed pediment on fluted consoles framing replacement glazed aluminium door having fanlight. Square-headed window openings (upper floors) with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and drag edged tooled cut-limestone "bas-relief" block-and-start surrounds centred on keystones framing replacement aluminium casement windows replacing one-over-one timber sash windows. Street fronted with flagged footpath to front.
Appraisal
A townhouse erected as one of a non-identical pair (including 31209025) representing an important component of the eighteenth-century domestic built heritage of Castlebar with the architectural value of the composition confirmed by such attributers as the compact rectilinear plan form; the construction in a rough cut limestone offset by "sparrow pecked" dressings demonstrating good quality workmanship; the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression; and the high pitched roofline. Having been reasonably well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with quantities of the original fabric: the introduction of replacement fittings to the openings, in particular a generic shopfront of minimal artistic interest, has not had a beneficial impact on the external expression or integrity of a townhouse having historic connections with the Brennan Brothers: Michael George (1839-71), artist (NGI); and Louis (1852-1932), inventor of the Brennan Torpedo (1877) and the Gyroscopic Monorail (1903; ITA 1945).