Aurora Cottage

Detached four-bay single-storey direct entry thatched house with dormer attic, extant 1894. Renovated, 2002. Pitched roof with part chicken wire-covered replacement Turkish reed thatch, exposed hazel or sally lattice stretchers to ridge having exposed scallops, cement rendered dwarf chimney stack having corbelled stepped stringcourse below capping supporting terracotta pots, and concrete coping to gables. Replacement cement rendered battered walls on rendered plinth. Square-headed window openings with concrete sills, and concealed dressings framing replacement timber casement windows. Square-headed opposing door openings with concealed dressings framing replacement glazed timber boarded or tongue-and-groove timber panelled doors. Interior including kitchen retaining hearth with tooled cut-limestone surround centred on tooled cut-limestone keystone, timber boarded opposing loft ladder with timber balusters supporting timber banister terminating in turned timber newels, and timber boarded vaulted ceiling; parlour (west) retaining timber chimneypiece, and timber boarded ceiling in carved timber frame; and loft bedroom (east) with timber boarded vaulted ceiling. Set perpendicular to road.

A house identified as an integral component of the nineteenth-century vernacular heritage of south County Mayo by such traits as the alignment perpendicular to the road; the rectilinear direct entry plan form; the construction in unrefined local fieldstone displaying a battered silhouette; and the high pitched roof latterly showing a non-indigenous Turkish reed thatch finish. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with quantities of the historic or original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior: the introduction of replacement fittings to most of the openings, however, has not had a beneficial impact on the character or integrity of a farmhouse making a picturesque visual statement in a sylvan setting.