Survey Data
Reg No
15605114
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social
Original Use
Presbytery/parochial/curate's house
In Use As
Presbytery/parochial/curate's house
Date
1900 - 1910
Coordinates
272053, 127241
Date Recorded
21/06/2005
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached five-bay two-storey parochial house with dormer attic, built 1905-6, on a U-shaped plan with single-bay two-storey gabled advanced end bays. Occupied, 1911. Hipped slate roof on a U-shaped plan centred on gablets to window openings to dormer attic; pitched (gabled) slate roofs (end bays), terracotta ridge tiles, paired red brick English Garden Wall bond central chimney stacks having corbelled stepped capping supporting yellow terracotta pots, cut-limestone stepped coping to gables, and cast-iron rainwater goods on dentilated timber box eaves retaining cast-iron downpipes. Rendered, ruled and lined walls on rendered battered base with drag edged cut-limestone flush quoins to corners. Square-headed central door opening approached by flight of four cut-limestone steps, timber doorcase with panelled pilasters supporting open bed segmental pediment on consoles framing glazed timber panelled double doors having overlight. Square-headed window openings in bipartite arrangement with cut-granite sills, timber mullions, and concealed dressings framing four-over-four (ground floor) or two-over-two (first floor) timber sash windows. Paired square-headed (ground floor) or camber-headed (first floor) window openings (end bays) with cut-granite sills, and concealed dressings (ground floor) or red brick voussoirs (first floor) framing six-over-six timber sash windows. Set in landscaped grounds shared with Catholic Church of Saint Mary and Saint Michael with rendered octagonal piers to perimeter having polygonal capping supporting wrought iron double gates.
Appraisal
A parochial house erected to designs by Doolin, Butler and Donnelly (formed 1902) of Dawson Street, Dublin (Irish Builder 20th May 1905, 350), representing an important component of the early twentieth-century built heritage of County Wexford with the architectural value of the composition, one forming part of a suite alongside an adjoining presbytery (see 15605115), confirmed by such attributes as the symmetrical frontage centred on a canopied doorcase demonstrating good quality workmanship; the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression; and the monolithic timber work embellishing a high pitched 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 parochial house forming part of a self-contained group alongside the adjacent Catholic Church of Saint Mary and Saint Michael (see 15605113) with the resulting ecclesiastical ensemble making a dramatic visual statement overlooking Robert Street. NOTE: Occupied (1911) by Reverend Michael Kavanagh (1840-1915), 'Parish Priest [and] Vicar General [and] Dean' (NA 1911).