Survey Data
Reg No
31908001
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social
Previous Name
Saint Nathy's once Edmondstown College
Original Use
Country house
In Use As
Bishop's palace
Date
1860 - 1865
Coordinates
164291, 296917
Date Recorded
19/08/2003
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached four-bay two- and three-storey country house, built 1863-4, to designs by John McCurdy (c.1824-85) in High Victorian Gothic style. Projecting gabled bay to east of porch, octagonal corner turret to south-facing side elevation, and return to rear. Pitched roofs with patterned slates, ashlar chimneystacks, decorative cast-iron finials and cast-iron rainwater goods. Snecked limestone walls with red brick courses at window head and sills levels. Carved stone plaque with date and landlord's initials to front elevation. Pointed-arch window openings with limestone and red brick surrounds, limestone sills and timber sliding sash windows. Canted bay windows to projecting gabled bay to front elevation. Gabled porch with pointed-arch doorway with timber double-leaf door flanked by sidelights, accessed by limestone steps. Gable-fronted outbuilding to rear yard. Two-storey outbuilding to rear of house with limestone dressing to carriage-arch opening and cut limestone bellcote. House set within mature parklands and accessed by winding driveway.
Appraisal
Edmondstown House is a rare example of High Victorian Gothic in County Roscommon. The construction of such an architecturally expressive structure was an ambitious project for the original owner, Captain Arthur Robert Gorges Costello (1832-91), who commissioned the design from John McCurdy (c.1824-85). Edmondstown House exhibits many features typical of High Victorian Gothic architecture including stringcourses of red brick framing the pointed-arch window openings, the decorative cast-iron roof finials and the octagonal turret. Edmondstown House was repurposed (1892) as a diocesan seminary known as Edmondstown College (1892) and as a bishop's palace known as Saint Nathy's (1911).