Survey Data
Reg No
22108029
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social
Original Use
Town/county hall
Date
1875 - 1880
Coordinates
189125, 135921
Date Recorded
07/06/2005
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached L-plan two-storey former town hall, built 1876, comprising multiple-bay east block, four-stage clock tower and projecting multiple-bay block to west with three-bay gable-front. Part of original building now replaced by recent multi-storey cinema and entertainment complex. Pitched felt sheeted roof to west block with red brick chimneystack, eaves brackets, terracotta copings to parapet and cast-iron rainwater goods. Fish-scale slated tent roof to clock tower with timber louvered openings and having dressed stone and wrought-iron finial with weather vane, dated 1877. Painted rendered walls with moulded terracotta parapet to east block. Decorative terracotta roundel and finial to gable-front. Moulded terracotta quoins and string course to both blocks and painted rendered plinth course. Remains of bracketed cornice to east block, with some heavy consoles retained. Roughcast rendered walls to tower with moulded terracotta quoins and cornices. Moulded terracotta surround to clock faces on south and east elevations with ball finials, swags and having commemorative plaque to front dated 1876. Square-headed window and door openings with decorative moulded terracotta cornices and sills, decorative terracotta surrounds, some having moulded foliage and mask decoration. One mullioned-and-transomed window to first floor of gable-front and to tower. Fixed timber windows. Door opening to west block with moulded terracotta surround, decorative terracotta surrounds to east block with moulded keystones, with concrete steps. Rendered capped piers with panel decoration to south boundary wall, with low rendered wall and decorative cast-iron railings.
Appraisal
This is the only Irish work of the English architect Thomas Jackson, and was commissioned by the Smith-Barrys who were landlords of the town. The nineteenth-century Jacobean Revival is apparent in many details such as in the grotesque ornament and the mullioned and transomed windows. The extensive use of moulded terracotta is also significant. Although it was damaged by fires in both 1941 and 1970, much important fabric is retained.