worker's house

Semi-detached three-bay single-storey house with attic, built c.1870, with return and extension to rear. Set back from street. Pitched slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles, rendered chimneystack, cast-iron rainwater goods, timber bargeboards with finial to gable end and dormer attic window. Catslide roof to return, lean-to roof to extension with roof lights. Roughcast render to walls with timber eaves course. Timber sash windows with tooled stone sills and oculus to attic, replacement timber casement window to southern bay. Square-headed door opening with timber battened door half-door with pitched canopy with decorative timber bargeboards and finial. Front site bounded by low hedge. Shared outhouse to rear site.

This attractive cottage forms part of a pair with its neighbouring building, and part of a larger group of similar structures all built as part of the same nineteenth-century scheme, which won a Royal Agricultural Society Medal for their design in the 1870s. The charming appearance of the cottage is heightened by its ornate detailing in the form of its door canopy with decorative bargeboards and decorative pivot oculus. The ornate design of such a small structure enhances the setting of Birr Castle demesne.