Archer Mansion

Terraced two-bay four-storey house, c.1825, incorporating fabric of medieval building, 1582/4, on site. Extensively renovated, c.1900, with advanced shopfront inserted to ground floor. Now in use as offices to upper floors. One of a pair. Pitched (shared) slate roof with clay ridge tiles, rendered chimney stacks, and cast-iron rainwater goods on overhanging rendered eaves having iron braces. Painted rendered, ruled and lined walls with cut-limestone date stone/plaque to first floor. Square-headed window openings with cut-stone sills, moulded rendered surrounds, replacement one-over-one (first floor) and two-over-two (remainder) timber sash windows, c.1900. Segmental-headed door opening with two tooled cut-limestone steps having cast-iron bootscraper, timber pilaster doorcase, timber panelled door having sidelights, fanlight, and consoles supporting fascia over having dentilated moulded cornice. Advanced timber shopfront, c.1900, to ground floor on a symmetrical plan with fluted/reeded engaged Doric columns, panelled pilasters having consoles, fixed-pane display windows, glazed timber panelled double door having overlight, and fascia with dentilated moulded cornice. Interior with timber panelled shutters to window openings. Road fronted with concrete brick cobbled footpath to front.

A well-appointed Classically-composed middle-size house built as one of a pair (with 12000057/KK-4766-09-57) lending an elegant formal quality to the streetscape: an enriched doorcase in particular embellishes the refined architectural design value of the composition while retaining a pretty Model 120 bootscraper manufactured at the A. Kendrick and Sons Foundry. Incorporating the fabric of an earlier range the present house represents the continued long-standing occupation of a site forming an important element of the late sixteenth-century archaeological legacy of Kilkenny City having connections with Martin Archer (n. d.) and the Archer family. Having been well maintained the house presents an early aspect with the original composition qualities intact together with much of the historic fabric both to the exterior and to the interior: a finely-detailed shopfront of artistic design importance exhibiting high quality craftsmanship enlivens the visual appeal of the site at street level. The house remains of additional importance for the associations with Reverend John Francis Shearman (1830-85), antiquarian and historian, Thomas McDonagh (1878-1916), and Francis Sheehy-Skeffington (1878-1916).