House in Rickardstown

Detached five-bay single-storey lobby entry thatched house with dormer attic, extant 1840, on a T-shaped plan centred on single-bay single-storey gabled windbreak. "Restored", 2001. Chicken wire-covered replacement hipped or hipped gables oat thatch roof overhanging lean-to roofs to window openings to dormer attic with remains of exposed hazel stretchers to degraded ridge having exposed wire scallops, red brick Running bond off-central dwarf chimney stack supporting terracotta pot, and blind stretchers to eaves having exposed wire scallops. Limewashed roughcast battered walls; part ivy-covered lime rendered surface finish to rear (west) elevation. Square-headed central door opening with concealed dressings framing replacement timber boarded or tongue-and-groove timber panelled half-door. Square-headed window openings with concrete or rendered sills, and concealed dressings framing two-over-two (ground floor) or three-over-six (dormer attic) timber sash windows having part exposed sash boxes with six-over-six timber sash windows to gables to side elevations. Road fronted with gravel verge to front.

A house identified as an integral component of the vernacular heritage of south County Wexford by such attributes as the rectilinear lobby entry plan form centred on a characteristic windbreak; the construction in unrefined local materials displaying a pronounced battered silhouette with sections of "daub" or mud suggested by an entry in the "House and Building Return" Form of the National Census (NA 1901; NA 1911); the disproportionate bias of solid to void in the massing; and the high pitched roof showing a degrading oat thatch finish. Having been well maintained, the elementary 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 or integrity of a house making a pleasing visual statement in a rural street scene.