Bawnjames House

Detached three-bay (two-bay deep) two-storey house, extant 1885, on a rectangular plan centred on single-bay single-storey flat-roofed advanced porch to ground floor. Hipped slate roof on a quadrangular plan with roll moulded ridge tiles, paired rendered panelled central chimney stacks on rendered bases having ogee-detailed cornice capping supporting terracotta pots, and cast-iron rainwater goods on slightly overhanging eaves on ogee-detailed cornice with cast-iron square profile downpipes. Fine roughcast walls on rendered chamfered cushion course on rendered plinth with vermiculated rusticated quoins to corners. Square-headed central door opening into house with glazed timber panelled door having sidelights on panelled risers below overlight. Square-headed flanking window openings in tripartite arrangement with rendered chamfered sill course, and rendered surrounds having bull nose-detailed reveals framing one-over-one timber sash windows having one-over-one sidelights. Square-headed window openings in tripartite arrangement (first floor) with cut-limestone sills, and rendered surrounds having bull nose-detailed reveals framing one-over-one timber sash windows having one-over-one sidelights. Square-headed window openings (side elevations) with cut-limestone sills, and rendered surrounds having bull nose-detailed reveals framing one-over-one timber sash windows. Set in landscaped grounds with margined rock faced ashlar piers to perimeter having cut-limestone shallow pyramidal capping supporting cast-iron double gates.

A house representing an important component of the late nineteenth-century domestic built heritage of the environs of New Ross with the architectural value of the composition, one described (1885) as 'new...stand[ing] in a park tastefully planted with ornamental trees and shrubs and brightened by the arts of the landscape gardener' (Bassett 1885, 209), confirmed by such attributes as the compact rectilinear plan form centred on a Classically-detailed porch; and the slight diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a feint graduated visual impression with those openings showing tripartite glazing patterns. Having been well maintained, the form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, thus upholding the character of the composition. NOTE: Bawnjames House was built by John Baptist Cullen (1846-1923) but was vacated shortly after the tragic drowning of two of his daughters in an ornamental pond in the grounds (1886). Bawnjames House was next occupied by John Stanislaus Hearn (1854-1918) who met his own tragic end aboard the RMS "Leinster" which was torpedoed outside Dublin Bay (10th October 1918). The present Bawnjames House stands on the site of an earlier house occupied by John Richard Magrath (1774-1834) 'of Bawn-james co. Kilkenny' (Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes 1888, 530).