The Abbey in Killeigh

Detached five-bay two-storey house, built c.1800, with return and extension to rear, projecting entrance porch, canted bay window to east. Set within the grounds of a former Augustinian abbey. Hipped slate roof with oversailing eaves, rendered chimneystacks and terracotta ridge tiles. Roughcast render to walls with smooth render to plinth and slight base batter. Timber sash windows with stone sills. Single-light round-headed window, single-light ogee-headed window and double-light ogee-headed transomed window to rear indicate an earlier, possibly sixteenth-century, phase of the house. Timber panelled door with brass fittings. Interior with timber dog-legged staircase which dates to the late sixteenth century. Tooled stone gate piers to road. Ranges of outbuildings accessed through snecked limestone segmental-headed integral carriage arch opening. Now used as a guest house. Multiple-bay two-storey roughcast rendered outbuildings with hipped slate roofs, timber casement and cast-iron lattice windows, timber battened doors and segmental-headed integral carriage arches.

Set within the grounds of a former Augustinian abbey, this house incorporates building phases from numerous centuries. The house is further enhanced by a striking complex of adjoining outbuildings established around a central courtyard. The survival of the timber staircase in the main house, which dates to the Elizabethan period, is particularly unique within Ireland. The display of the sixteenth century ogee-headed windows in a domestic building, rather than a tower house or ecclesiastical structure, is of interest. The execution of stonework to the carriage arch, which leads into the yard, is another particularly notable feature.