Survey Data
Reg No
15605111
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Scientific, Social
Original Use
Garda station/constabulary barracks
Date
1950 - 1955
Coordinates
271885, 127228
Date Recorded
21/06/2005
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three-bay two-storey flat-roofed Garda Síochána station, built 1951-2; opened 1952, on a rectangular plan with six-bay single-storey flat-roofed projection to ground floor. Closed, 2005. Now disused. Flat bitumen felt roofs with no rainwater goods on slightly overhanging eaves. Rendered walls; coursed or snecked rubble stone walls (projection) with cut- or hammered limestone flush quoins to corners. Grouped square-headed window openings with concrete mullions, and rendered surround framing steel casement windows. Square-headed window openings (projection) with cut- or hammered limestone block-and-start surrounds supporting cut-limestone lintels framing steel pivot windows. Set back from line of street with benchmark-inscribed stepped boundary wall to perimeter having concrete coping.
Appraisal
A Garda Síochána Station erected to a design produced by the Office of Public Works (established 1831) representing an important component of the mid twentieth-century built heritage of New Ross with the architectural value of the composition, one exploring contemporary Modernism and thereby in contrast to the conservative neo-Georgian style of earlier decades (cf. 15601018; 15613012; 15614005; 15621009; 15702118; 15703520; 15703932; 15704012; 15704710), confirmed by such attributes as the compact "cubic" plan form; the film strip-like grouped openings showing characteristic steel fittings; and the slightly oversailing flat roofline. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, thus upholding the character or integrity of a Garda Síochána Station forming part of a self-contained group alongside New Ross Courthouse (see 15605110) with the resulting ensemble making a pleasing visual statement in an urban street scene: meanwhile, a benchmark remains of additional interest for the connections with cartography and the preparation of maps by the Ordnance Survey (established 1824).