Survey Data
Reg No
13401109
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural
Original Use
House
In Use As
House
Date
1860 - 1900
Coordinates
234794, 278248
Date Recorded
15/08/2005
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three-bay two-storey house on L-shaped plan, built c. 1880, having two-storey return to the rear (northwest), canted bay window to southwest elevation, single-storey lean-to extension to northeast elevation, and two-storey extension to the rear (northwest). Single-bay entrance porch to the centre of the front elevation (southeast) having flat roof with moulded render cornice and having render strips to the corners. Hipped natural slate roof with two rendered chimneystacks and cast-iron rainwater goods. Painted lined-and-ruled rendered walls with painted quoins. Square-headed window openings with three-over-six pane timber sliding sash windows to first floor and six-over-six pane to ground floor openings, all with painted limestone sills. Four-over-four and six-over-six pane timber sliding sash windows to canted bay window, two-over-two pane timber sliding sash windows to side elevations of porch (northeast and southwest). Square-headed door opening to front face of porch (southeast) with replacement door, having glazed overlight and sidelights. Set back from road in mature grounds to the southeast of Granard with complex of single- and two-storey outbuildings (13401108) arranged around a courtyard to the rear (northwest). Main gateway to the southeast of house comprising a pair of ashlar limestone gate piers (on square-plan) with stepped capstones over, and having hooped wrought-iron double gates. Main gateway flanked to either side by sections of rendered boundary wall that are terminated by rendered gate piers (on square-plan) having ashlar limestone capstones over. Gateway to the northwest of site having tooled limestone gate posts and a pair of hooped wrought-iron gates.
Appraisal
This middle-sized house of mid-to-late nineteenth-century appearance, retains its original form and character. It represents a good example of its type and date, and retains the majority of its salient fabric. The regularly-spaced and diminishing window openings, and the pleasing symmetry of the main elevation give it a muted classical character. It forms the centrepiece of a group of related structures along with the complex of single- and two-storey outbuildings and stables (13401108) to the rear. The gateways to the southeast and the north add considerable to the setting of this house, which is a pleasing feature in the rural landscape to the southeast of Granard and an integral element of the built heritage of the local area. Toneen Lodge was the home of a Hugh Ponsonby Wilson (R. S. O./Justice of the Peace) in 1894 (Slater’s Directory). Wilson was later High Sheriff of County Westmeath in 1907 (Will). The present Toneen Lodge replaced an earlier building called Toneen Lodge, which was located a short distance to the southwest of the present house (Ordnance Survey first edition six-inch map 1838), which appears to have been associated with the Slator family.