Ards House, steward's house in County Donegal (40902627)

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Detached three-bay two-storey former steward's house, built c.1840, with gabled end bays to front, single-storey glazed extension to northwest and single-storey gabled extension to northeast. Hipped and pitched re-slated roof having smooth-rendered chimneystacks with cornice copings, cast-iron rainwater goods including hopper with decorative brackets, decorative painted timber bargeboards with trefoil insets and exposed rafter ends to overhanging eaves, and spear-headed timber finials to gable apexes. Glazed hipped roof to northwest; pitched slate roof with decorative bargeboard to rear extension. Smooth-rendered walls. Square-headed window openings with replacement timber sliding sash windows and painted concrete sills. Pointed-arch doorway with raised smooth-render band on projecting plinth, and timber battened door with decorative lattice overlight. Three-bay two-storey outbuilding to northeast with flanking single-bay single-storey extensions, pitched purple slate roof with rendered copings, rendered chimneystack (disused), exposed rafter ends, cast-iron rainwater goods, smooth-rendered walls and square-headed replacement timber sliding sash windows. Gable-fronted garage to southeast of house with square-headed opening incorporating timber lattice window originally from house.

This former steward's house was built as part of the ancillary structures for now-demolished Ards House and is a reminder of the resources required to maintain a country house in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was formerly a rectory and may have been altered to house an estate manager during the mid-nineteenth century. Although altered and renovated in recent years, it retains much of its character. Composed on a symmetrical plan, the building is elegantly proportioned, despite the lowering of sills to first floor level. The outbuildings, sympathetically renovated, complete an appealing complex of buildings.

From the Buildings of Ireland (National Inventory of Architectural Heritage) record 40902627

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Vadim Manuylov, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0
dalvenjah on Flickr, Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
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