rectory/glebe/vicarage/curate's house

Detached three-bay two-storey Board of First Fruits Church of Ireland glebe house, designed 1824; built 1826 or 1828, on an L-shaped plan with two-bay (east) or single-bay (west) two-storey side elevations. Occupied, 1901; 1911. Vacant, 1944. Renovated, ----. Hipped slate roof on an L-shaped plan with clay ridge tiles, paired cement rendered central chimney stacks having concrete capping supporting terracotta pots, and replacement uPVC rainwater goods on timber eaves boards on rendered cut-limestone eaves retaining cast-iron downpipes. Roughcast walls on cut-limestone chamfered cushion course on roughcast plinth. Hipped square-headed central door opening with timber mullions on step threshold framing replacement timber panelled door having sidelights. Square-headed window openings with cut-limestone sills, and concealed dressings framing replacement uPVC casement windows replacing six-over-six timber sash windows. Interior including (ground floor): central hall retaining carved timber surrounds to door openings framing timber panelled doors; and carved timber surrounds to door openings to remainder framing timber panelled doors with carved timber surrounds to window openings framing timber panelled reveals or shutters. Set in landscaped grounds with rendered piers to perimeter having pebble encrusted capping supporting spear head-detailed cast-iron double gates.

A glebe house erected to a design signed (1824) by Joseph Welland (1798-1860) representing an important component of the early nineteenth-century built heritage of Louisburgh with the architectural value of the composition, one rooted firmly in the contemporary late Georgian fashion and thereby in contrast to the "picturesque" Gothicism of the adjacent Saint Catherine's Church (Kilgeever) (see 31308603), confirmed by such attributes as the compact plan form centred on a much modified doorcase; and the slight 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 fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior: however, the introduction of replacement fittings to most of the openings has not had a beneficial impact on the character or integrity of a glebe house having historic connections with the Kilgeever parish Church of Ireland clergy including Reverend John Forbes (----), 'Clerk in Holy Orders [and] Rector [and] Rural Dean' (NA 1901; NA 1911).