Survey Data
Reg No
15503141
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Scientific, Social
Original Use
Building misc
Date
1855 - 1860
Coordinates
304899, 121805
Date Recorded
10/01/2007
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Terraced two-bay three-storey institute with dormer attic, opened 1858, on a rectangular plan. Vacant, 1901. Occupied, 1911. Closed, ----. Renovated, ----, to accommodate alternative use. Replacement pitched artificial slate roof centred on flat roof to window opening to dormer attic with uPVC rainwater goods on "Cavetto"-detailed moulded rendered cornice. Replacement cement rendered walls. Pair of segmental-headed openings (ground floor) with pilasters on benchmark-inscribed plinths supporting moulded archivolts framing replacement fittings. Square-headed window openings (upper floors) with moulded rendered sill courses, and rendered "bas-relief" surrounds framing replacement uPVC casement windows replacing six-over-six timber sash windows. Interior including (first floor): carved timber surround to door opening framing timber panelled door with carved timber surrounds to opposing window openings framing timber panelled shutters on panelled risers, and moulded plasterwork cornice to ceiling centred on decorative plasterwork ceiling rose; and (top floor): carved timber surrounds to door openings framing timber panelled doors with carved timber surrounds to window openings framing timber panelled shutters on panelled risers. Street fronted with concrete footpath to front.
Appraisal
An institute erected to a design by Edwin Thomas Willis (1835-1905) of Rowe Street (Wexford Independent 1859; Dublin Builder 1st March 1860, 224) representing an important component of the mid nineteenth-century built heritage of Wexford with the architectural value of the composition, one largely endowed by Sir Francis Le Hunte (1787-1859) of Artramon Cottage (Lacy 1863, 409), suggested by such attributes as the compact plan form; the arcaded street front; the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression with those openings originally showing Classical "stucco" refinements; and the high pitched roofline. Having been reasonably well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior: however, the introduction of replacement fittings to the openings has not had a beneficial impact on the character or integrity of an institute making a pleasing visual statement overlooking Anne Street. NOTE: The whereabouts of the library and museum collection is now unknown with that collection originally including one thousand volumes and a coral collection gifted by Le Hunte; three hundred volumes presented by Francis Codd (d. 1857) of Ballytory Castle (see 15704871); one hundred volumes presented by William Boxwell West (1802-77), one-time United States Consul at Dublin (appointed 1861); one hundred volumes donated by Mrs. Samuel Carter Hall [Anna Maria Fielding (1800-81)] 'including all her own works'; one hundred volumes presented by John Lloyd (1780-1853) of Thorn Ville (see 15704763); '[a] single book presentation by Queen Victoria with autograph'; a collection of curiosities donated by Thomas Joseph Hutchinson (1820-85), one-time Governor of Fernando Po (appointed 1857), including 'the bamboo crown used at the coronation of the King of Bassapoo in 1857…a royal drum taken from the bow of the canoe in which King George of Gaboon used to pay state visits…a fetish idol from Iddah on Niger [and] a one-stringed harp from the River Nazareth'; and 'a blue-faced Chimpanzee in an attitude which pays the very highest tribute to the merit of the naturalist' (Bassett 1885, 99-103).