Survey Data
Reg No
30318021
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural
Original Use
Office
Historical Use
Bank/financial institution
In Use As
Office
Date
1850 - 1855
Coordinates
129467, 224925
Date Recorded
21/08/2008
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three-bay single-storey with attic Gothic-style limestone-built former canal office, built 1852, and having slightly advanced south end bay and flat-roof porch to front elevation, and four-bay rear elevation. Now in use as commercial offices. Pitched slate roof with recent roof-lights to rear pitch and tooled copings and limestone skew corbels to gables. Tooled limestone brackets to eaves with ogee-moulded cornice concealing gutters with cast-iron downpipes. Unpolished crazy-paving rubble Galway marble walls with limestone plinth and tooled quoins with chamfers to front corners. Inscribed stone plaque above porch. Square-headed window openings having double one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows with chamfered tooled block-and-start surrounds with chamfered mullions. Tooled hood-mouldings with label-stops to attic storey windows to south-east and south-west gables. Raised render surrounds to porch window with tooled limestone sill and one-over-one pane timber sliding sash window. Square-headed door openings to porch and north-east side return having chamfered tooled limestone block-and-start surrounds and timber panelled doors. Building set back from street on quayside of Eglinton Canal. Low rubble-stone enclosing plinth wall with recent metal railings and double-leaf gate.
Appraisal
Located on the south bank of the Eglinton Canal, this handsome former canal office is a striking feature of the streetscape. Its finely crafted stonework, using a combination of green Galway marble with the grey limestone, stands as a testament to the skills of mid-nineteenth-century stone masons and craftsmen. Other features, such as finely detailed skew-corbels and tooled mullions, add to the Gothic-styling of a building which is integral to the industrial heritage of Galway due to its close association with the canal.