Survey Data
Reg No
31301013
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Previous Name
Ballyglass Lighthouse
Original Use
Lighthouse keeper's house
Date
1850 - 1860
Coordinates
76976, 337069
Date Recorded
21/03/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three-bay single-storey lighthouse keeper's house with dormer attic, built 1853-5; occupied 1901, on a symmetrical plan. Occupied, 1911. Vacated, 1931[?]. Now disused. Pitched roof on collared timber construction with slate finish now missing, roll moulded clay or terracotta ridge tiles, cut-granite coping to gables with rendered chimney stacks to apexes having cut-granite stringcourses below stepped capping supporting terracotta pots, and no rainwater goods surviving on cut-granite eaves retaining cast-iron downpipes. Roughcast wall to front (south) elevation on cut-granite chamfered plinth; rendered surface finish (remainder). Square-headed central opposing door openings with cut-granite step thresholds, and concealed red brick block-and-start surrounds with fittings now missing retaining overlights. Square-headed flanking window openings with cut-granite sills, and concealed dressings framing eight-over-eight timber sash windows. Interior including (ground floor): central hall with flagged floor; and remains of timber surrounds to door openings to remainder framing remains of timber doors with timber panelled shutters to window openings. Set in grounds shared with Broadhaven Lighthouse.
Appraisal
A house erected to a design by George Halpin Senior (1776-1854), Inspector of Works and Lighthouses for the Ballast Board (appointed 1810; Sloane 1880, 248), representing an integral component of the mid nineteenth-century built heritage of Contae Mhaigh Eo [north County Mayo] with the architectural value of the composition, one recalling contemporary houses at Inishowen, County Donegal; and Inisheer, off County Galway, confirmed by such attributes as the compact rectilinear plan form centred on featureless opposing doorcases; and the high pitched roofline. A prolonged period of neglect notwithstanding, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, thereby upholding much of the character or integrity of a house forming part of a neat self-contained group alongside the adjacent Broadhaven Lighthouse (see 31301012) with the resulting ensemble making a pleasing visual statement overlooking Cnocán na Líne [Broadhaven].