kiln

Freestanding single-bay two-stage lime kiln, built c.1820, on a square plan. Now out of use. Constructed of coursed limestone rubble with squared limestone quoins to corners. Segmental-headed arch to front (south), the former oven aperture, with dressed limestone voussoirs. Former loading bay to top of kiln. Set back from road (north) to the extreme northwest corner of Westmeath, adjacent to Co. Meath, on main Castlepollard to Oldcastle road.

The interesting survival of a former lime kiln, probably built in the early nineteenth-century, which is of technical merit. It is well-built using local limestone and is an appealing and unassuming element of the agricultural/industrial and social heritage of Westmeath. It is built into a hill to allow for the easy loading of limestone through an opening in the roof structure. Lime kilns appear to have come into popular use in Ireland during the eighteenth century and were once quite a common feature in the rural landscape. They were used to burn limestone to produce lime, which was used in construction/building as a mortar and a render, or to produce a fertilizer, which was then spread on agricultural land. Lime was also used for lime-washing buildings, particularly farm buildings, as it was regarded as a cleansing agent at the time. Small rural lime kilns started to go out of common usage during the late nineteenth-century with the advent of industrial-scale lime production facilities and improvements in the transport network, particularly the development of the railways.