Survey Data
Reg No
15310107
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Social
Original Use
Hotel
In Use As
Hotel
Date
1865 - 1870
Coordinates
243757, 253043
Date Recorded
01/07/2004
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Terraced five-bay three-storey hotel, built c.1869. Pitched slate roof with rendered chimneystacks and cast-iron rainwater goods. Ruled-and-line rendered walls with raised block quoins to the corner at either end. Square-headed window openings having stone sills and one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows. Cut stone cornices supported on cut stone consoles above first floor openings. Iron sill to the ground floor openings. Central square-headed doorway having a cut limestone doorcase with carved console brackets supporting a heavy cornice over. Timber panelled double-doors with a square-headed multi-paned overlight above. Road-fronted to the south side of Pearse Street. Greville Monument to interior.
Appraisal
An accomplished and substantial mid nineteenth-century commercial premises, which retains its early form, fabric and character. The front facade is distinguished by the good quality limestone doorcase and by the bracketed cut limestone cornices over the first floor openings. The elongated windows to the first floor indicates that this was intended to act as the ‘piano nobile’ and probably had/has the main function/ball rooms. This building was built for Lord Greville to designs by William Caldbeck (1824-1872), an eminent architect of his day. Caldbeck was Lord Greville’s architect of choice and he was also responsible for the building or rebuilding of the Market House (15310103), a few doors to the west in 1867. The elongated console brackets to the main doorway are a characteristic feature of Caldbeck’s designs and can be found on a number of his buildings in Westmeath. This building is an interesting example of a hotel carrying the name of the landlord who built it, once a common feature of Irish country towns but now becoming increasingly rare. This hotel is built on the site of an earlier ‘Greville Arms Hotel’ in existence in 1750. The interior retains an interesting monument known as the Greville Monument. This building is an important and imposing addition to the streetscape of Mullingar and a worthy addition to the built heritage of Westmeath.