Survey Data
Reg No
11814114
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Original Use
Church hall/parish hall
In Use As
Church hall/parish hall
Date
1800 - 1820
Coordinates
289343, 219728
Date Recorded
20/05/2002
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached four-bay two-storey parish hall, c.1810, originally detached retaining early aspect. Gable-ended roof with slate. Clay ridge tiles. Iron vents to ridge with conical caps. Cross finials to apexes. Chimney stack now removed. Timber eaves. Cast-iron rainwater goods on moulded cut-granite cornice. Rendered walls. Painted. Cut-granite dressings including moulded cornice with modillions (continuing into gables forming open bed ‘pediments’). Square-headed window openings. Cut-granite chamfered sills and surrounds with hood mouldings over. Yellow brick block-and-start surrounds to ground floor to elevation to north-east. Timber casement windows. Lancet-arch window openings to side elevation to north-west in tripartite arrangement. 1/1 and 2/2 timber sash windows with leaded stained glass panel to arch to centre opening. Square-headed door openings to north-east. Timber panelled double doors. Overlight. Set back from road in grounds shared with Catholic church and convent.
Appraisal
Naas Parish Hall is a fine, substantial building that successfully combines motifs of the Classical and Gothic styles of architecture in a symmetrically-planned composition. The building is of social significance as a communal facility for use by the Catholic community in the locality. Well-maintained, the hall presents an early aspect and retains many original or early features and fittings, including timber casement fenestration, some timber sash windows to the lancet-arch openings, and timber fittings to the door openings. The slate roof also retains early iron work, including rainwater goods and vents to the ridge. The building is distinguished by the quality of the stone work to the dressings, which include attractive surrounds to the window openings and a detailed cornice to the roof that has retained a crisp intricacy attesting to the high standard of stone masonry practised in the locality. The parish hall is an attractive and integral component of a self-contained group of Catholic buildings located to north of the town that is of some historic importance, attesting to the growing confidence of that community in the final years of the Penal Law system.