house

Detached four-bay three-storey house, built c.1850, with projecting single-bay single-storey porch to front (north) and three-storey return to rear (south). Formerly part of a brewery complex. Pitched natural slate roof with rendered chimneystacks to either end and cast-iron rainwater goods. Ruled-and-line rendered walls over plinth to base, moulded eaves cornice and raised block quoins to corners. Square-headed window openings with one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows, cut stone sills and pedimented mouldings over supported on console brackets. Openings to top floor have console brackets and a line of small cartouches instead of pediment. Round-headed opening to first floor (over projecting porch) with original door now converted into a casement window with flanking Ionic pilasters and console brackets supporting cornice with plain glass fanlight over. Square-headed opening to porch with modern timber door and sidelights. Sunken area to front (north) has encaustic tiled pathway enclosed to road edge by cast-iron railings over cut stone plinth wall with entrance steps flanked by stone posts with acorn detail.

A substantial, well-proportioned and attractive house which maintains its early form, character and most of its early fabric. The ornate decoration is of artistic merit and helps to add diversity to the streetscape of Kilbeggan. The round-headed window to the first floor is an unusual feature which gives this building the appearance of a late nineteenth-century Roman Catholic convent. This building may have been originally built as part of a brewery complex which stood on this site c. 1840 and later became the home of the Locke Family of Locke's Distillery fame, c. 1860. It remains a important part of the Locke's Distillery complex and a vital component of the streetscape to the west-end of Kilbeggan.