Survey Data
Reg No
31300603
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social
Original Use
Hunting/fishing lodge
Date
1850 - 1855
Coordinates
102145, 340991
Date Recorded
14/01/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached seven-bay single-storey sporting lodge, built 1854, on a symmetrical plan with single-bay single-storey gabled projecting bays originally centred on single-bay single-storey lean-to projecting glazed porch. Occupied, 1901; 1911. Sold, 1927. Derelict, 2006. For sale, 2012. Now in ruins. Remains of hipped slate roofs on collared timber construction centred on pitched slate roof on a U-shaped plan, clay ridge tiles, paired cement rendered yellow brick Running bond chimney stacks centred on paired cement rendered central chimney stacks on cement rendered bases having corbelled stepped stringcourses below capping supporting abbreviated yellow terracotta tapered pots, decorative timber bargeboards to gables on timber purlins with timber finials to apexes, and no rainwater goods surviving on cut-limestone eaves. Part repointed tuck pointed snecked rubble sandstone walls with hammered limestone flush quoins to corners. Square-headed central door opening with cut-limestone step threshold, and repointed yellow brick block-and-start surround having concave reveals with no fittings surviving. Square-headed flanking window openings with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and repointed yellow brick block-and-start surrounds supporting cut-limestone lintels with no fittings surviving. Square-headed window openings with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and repointed yellow brick block-and-start surrounds with no fittings surviving. Interior in ruins. Set in unkempt grounds on a slightly elevated site with cylindrical piers to perimeter having domed capping supporting wrought iron-detailed flat iron double gates.
Appraisal
A sporting lodge erected for Zachary Mudge (1813-67) on a site obtained (1854) through the Encumbered Estates Court representing an important component of the mid nineteenth-century domestic built heritage of Contae Mhaigh Eo [north County Mayo] with the architectural value of the composition confirmed by such attributes as the deliberate alignment maximising on panoramic vistas overlooking An tAigéan Atlantach [Atlantic Ocean]; the symmetrical footprint originally centred on an expressed porch; the construction in an ochre-coloured local sandstone with silver-grey limestone or yellow brick dressings producing a mild polychromatic palette; and the decorative timber work embellishing the roof. Although reduced to near ruins following a prolonged period of unoccupancy in the later twentieth century, the form and massing survive intact together with quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, thus upholding much of the character or integrity of a sporting lodge having subsequent connections with Lieutenant Arthur Thomas Mudge (1846-1925) of Sydney in Devon (Burke 1871 II, 958); and a succession of tenants including William P. Lynch (1862-1938), 'Game Keeper' (NA 1901; NA 1911).