house

Terraced two-bay three-storey double-pile over basement townhouse, extant 1838, with shopfront to ground floor. Adapted to alternative use, 1989. Refenestrated, 2008. One of a terrace of six. Pitched double-pile (M-profile) slate roof with clay ridge tiles, rendered chimney stack having stringcourse below capping supporting terracotta or yellow terracotta pots, and cast-iron rainwater goods on timber eaves board on cut-limestone eaves. Drag edged tooled limestone ashlar wall (upper floors). Shopfront to ground floor including pair of segmental-headed door openings with dragged limestone ashlar voussoirs framing timber panelled doors having fanlights. Tuck pointed drag edged tooled limestone ashlar wall (upper floors). Square-headed window openings (upper floors) with drag edged dragged cut-limestone sills, and drag edged tooled cut-limestone block-and-start surrounds centred on keystones framing replacement six-over-six (first floor) or six-over-three (top floor) timber sash windows. Interior including (upper floors): carved timber surrounds to door openings framing timber panelled doors with timber panelled shutters to window openings. Street fronted with cobbled footpath to front.

A townhouse erected as one of a terrace of six identical houses (including 31204069 - 31204071; 31204073) representing an important component of the early nineteenth-century built heritage of Ballina with the architectural value of the composition, one of the 'many new houses built [within the last ten years] by merchants and others engaged in trade and commerce' (Lewis 1837 I, 104), confirmed by such attributes as the compact plan form; the arcaded street front recalling contemporary shopfronts at Enniscorthy, County Wexford (cf. 15603124); and Youghal, County Cork (cf. 20823037); the "sparrow pecked" surface finish offset by sheer limestone dressings demonstrating good quality workmanship; and the diminishing in scale of the openings on each floor producing a graduated visual impression. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original or sympathetically replicated fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, thereby upholding the character or integrity of a townhouse forming part of a neat self-contained ensemble making a pleasing visual statement in Pearse Street.