Survey Data

Reg No

15302032


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Artistic, Social


Original Use

Shop/retail outlet


In Use As

Office


Date

1830 - 1870


Coordinates

246504, 270102


Date Recorded

07/07/2004


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Semi-detached five-bay single-storey building, c.1850, having a traditional timber shopfront to the northwest end of the front facade. Now in use as offices. Pitched natural slate roof with cast-iron rainwater goods and a single rendered chimneystack to the centre. Raised rendered verge to the southeast gable end. Smooth rendered finish to the front façade (southwest) with roughcast rendered finish to the side elevation (southeast). Square-headed window openings to the southeast end having two-over-two pane timber sliding sash windows. Square-headed doorways to the southeast end having early timber panelled doors with plan glass overlights. Timber shopfront to northwest end comprises a central square-headed doorway (with overlight) flanked to either side by square-headed triple-light display windows and with timber pilasters supporting timber fascia board above with moulded cornice over. Raised lettering to fascia and decorative console brackets to either end of fascia board. Road-fronted with rubble limestone wall to the southeast end and a yard with single-storey outbuildings to the rear (northeast). Located along the Dublin Road, to the southeast end of Castlepollard.

Appraisal

This simple but well-maintained single-storey building retains its early form, character and fabric. Of particular note is good quality traditional timber shopfront to the northwest end, which is an excellent example of its type and is an increasingly rare survival. This shopfront is probably of late nineteenth or early twentieth-century date and is based on a simplification of the classical formula of columns supporting entablature over, which is a characteristic feature of traditional Irish shopfronts. It is the only surviving shopfront of its type in Castlepollard, a town previously noted for its fine collection of traditional shopfronts. This building has a positive impact of the streetscape and forms a picturesque feature along one of the main approach roads into the village.