The Laurels

Detached five-bay two-storey over part raised basement house, built 1840, on a rectangular plan. Occupied, 1901; 1911. Sold, 1934. Restored, 2017-8. Replacement pitched slate roof with ridge tiles, rendered chimney stacks having stepped capping supporting ribbed yellow terracotta pots, and cast-iron rainwater goods on red brick header bond eaves with cast-iron downpipe. Replacement lime rendered walls. Elliptical-headed central door opening approached by flight of seven replacement cut-granite steps with concealed dressings framing timber panelled door having fanlight. Square-headed window openings (basement) with cut-limestone sills, and concealed dressings framing replacement six-over-three timber sash windows. Square-headed window openings with cut-limestone sills, and concealed dressings framing replacement six-over-six timber sash windows. Street fronted with rendered piers to perimeter having concrete capping supporting replacement mild steel gate.

A house erected by Richard Oliver Nelson (d. 1856) representing an integral component of the domestic built heritage of Celbridge with the architectural value of the composition, one succeeding an eighteenth-century house leased (1784) to William Wadsworth '[who] in 1779 set up a manufacture of wood hats in the town of Celbridge and county of Kildare' (The Parliamentary Register 1787, 150), suggested by such attributes as the compact rectilinear plan form centred on a restrained doorcase showing a simple radial fanlight; and the uniform or near-uniform proportions of the openings on each floor. Having been sympathetically restored, the form and massing survive intact together with quantities of the original or replicated fabric, both to the exterior and to the interior, thus upholding the character or integrity of a house making a pleasing visual statement in Main Street. NOTE: Occupied (1901; 1911) by James Fay (d. 1916), 'Master House Painter and General Contractor' (NA 1901; NA 1911).