house

Attached two- or three-bay three-storey house, extant 1840, on a rectangular plan. Renovated, ----, to accommodate alternative use. Pitched slate roof with clay ridge tiles, coping to gables with rendered chimney stacks to apexes having stepped capping supporting terracotta pots, and cast-iron rainwater goods on rendered stepped eaves retaining cast-iron downpipe. Rendered, ruled and lined walls. Segmental-headed central door opening with cut-granite threshold, doorcase with engaged columns on padstones supporting shallow cornice on flush beaded frieze, and moulded rendered surround framing timber panelled door having fanlight. Square-headed window openings with cut-granite sills, and concealed dressings framing replacement uPVC casement windows. Set back from line of street with rendered, ruled and lined boundary wall to perimeter having cut-granite "saddleback" coping supporting crocketed cast-iron railings centred on crocketed cast-iron gate.

A house representing an integral component of the domestic built heritage of Wexford with the architectural value of the composition suggested by such attributes as the compact rectilinear plan form centred on a Classically-detailed doorcase showing a simple radial fanlight; the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated tiered visual effect; and the high pitched roofline. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric: however, the introduction of replacement fittings to most of the openings has not had a beneficial impact on the external expression or integrity of a house making a pleasing visual statement in John Street Lower. NOTE: Allegedly the home of Thomas Mayler O'Leary (d. 1880), 'Town Clerk late of Wexford' (Calendars of Wills and Administrations 1881, 541; Kehoe 1985, 13).