Survey Data

Reg No

15311009


Original Use

House


In Use As

House


Date

1890 - 1910


Coordinates

244341, 253353


Date Recorded

06/09/2004


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Group of semi-detached three-bay single-storey with attic level local authority houses, built c.1900, having a projecting gable-fronted entrance porch to the outer bay of each building. Now in use as private houses with some units no longer in use. Pitched slate roofs with overhanging eaves, gabled dormer windows to the inner bays, some remaining sections of cast-iron rainwater goods and with brick chimneystacks. Roughcast rendered walls over smooth rendered plinths. Square-headed window openings with rendered reveals/surrounds, a number retaining early two-over-two pane timber sliding sash windows and replacement windows elsewhere. Square-headed doorways to the projecting porches with rendered reveals/surrounds and having mainly replacement doors. Road-fronted with gardens to the side and to the rear. Located to the northwest side of Mullingar.

Appraisal

A large group of early local authority houses, which retain most of their early form and character despite the loss of the majority of early fittings to the openings. The appearance of these houses suggests that they were built as part local authority scheme of social housing. A great many houses of this type were built in Ireland following the passing of the various Land and Labourers’ Acts (c.1880-1921) by the British Parliament in the late nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries and they are a feature of the outskirts of many of the larger Irish towns. The vast majority of these buildings are now heavily altered, as is the case with these examples in Mullingar, although a few relatively untouched examples still survive here at Springfield Cottages and they are particular importance (see 15311021). They are well-built and to a conscious architectural design, which is basically an ‘improved’ interpretation of the vernacular housing of the time. The large gardens to the rear reflect the social thinking of the time. These modest structures are an interesting part of the social history of Mullingar and reflect the growth of Mullingar to the east at the time.