Survey Data
Reg No
15603052
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Original Use
House
In Use As
House
Date
1790 - 1810
Coordinates
297218, 139717
Date Recorded
13/06/2005
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Terraced two-bay three-storey red brick house, c.1800, with shopfront to ground floor incorporating elliptical-headed carriageway to right. Refenestrated, c.1975. One of a group of two. Pitched (shared) slate roof with clay ridge tiles, rendered (shared) chimney stacks having stringcourses, stepped capping, and cast-iron rainwater goods on red brick eaves having iron ties. Red brick Common (fifth course header) bond walls. Square-headed window openings with cut-granite sills forming part of stepped sill course to first floor, red brick voussoirs, and replacement aluminium casement windows, c.1975. Rendered 'Enniscorthy shopfront' to ground floor incorporating carriageway to right with elliptical-headed openings on cut-granite piers having replacement fixed-pane timber display window, c.1975, glazed timber door having sidelight, overlight, timber double doors to carriageway incorporating wicket gate, iron lettering, and stepped cornice (sill course). Interior retaining timber panelled reveals or shutters to some window openings. Street fronted with concrete brick cobbled footpath to front.
Appraisal
An appealing house built as one of a group of two houses (with 15603051) representing an important element of the late eighteenth- or early nineteenth-century architectural legacy of Enniscorthy. Exhibiting attributes indicating a patronage shared with a contemporary (1790) development in Mary Street (see 15603128 - 129) associated with the Sparrow family of nearby Blackstoops House, the house is distinguished in Rafter Street by the construction in red brick, the uniform Classical proportions on each floor lending a dignified, if understated design quality to the composition, and so on: meanwhile, notwithstanding a number of modifications, the surviving elementary characteristics of a so-called 'Enniscorthy shopfront' enhance the street presence of the site at street level. However, the external expression of the house has not benefited from the introduction of replacement fittings to most of the openings.