worker's house

Detached three-bay single-storey worker's house with half-dormer attic, extant 1868, on a T-shaped plan centred on single-bay single-storey projecting porch. Occupied, 1911. Pitched slate roof on a T-shaped plan including gablets to window openings to half-dormer attic centred on pitched (gabled) slate roof (porch), clay ridge tiles centred on rendered chimney stack having stringcourse below stepped capping supporting yellow terracotta octagonal pots, timber bargeboards to gables on timber purlins with timber finials to apexes, and replacement uPVC rainwater goods on timber eaves boards on exposed timber rafters. Creeper- or ivy-covered rendered walls. Square-headed central door opening approached by flight of eight cut-granite steps with cut-granite step threshold, and concealed dressings with hood moulding over framing timber boarded or tongue-and-groove timber panelled double doors. Square-headed window openings to "cheeks" with cut-granite sills, and concealed dressings with hood mouldings over framing fixed-pane timber fittings having margins. Square-headed window openings in bipartite arrangement with cut-granite sills, timber mullions, and concealed dressings with hood mouldings over framing nine-over-nine timber sash windows. Set back from line of road in landscaped grounds on an elevated site with lichen-spotted granite ashlar panelled piers to perimeter having cut-granite shallow pyramidal capping.

A house representing an integral component of the mid nineteenth-century domestic built heritage of County Wexford with the architectural value of the composition, one of the 'labourers' dwellings of a superior description consistent with [Charles Arthur Walker's] long-established reputation for generous and encouraging treatment of the tenants on his estate' (Hickey alias Doyle 1868, 100), confirmed by such attributes as the compact plan form centred on an expressed porch; the uniform or near-uniform proportions of the openings on each floor with those openings showing pretty bipartite glazing patterns; and the miniature gablets embellishing a high pitched roofline. Having been well maintained, the elementary form and massing survive intact together with substantial quantities of the original fabric, thereby upholding the character or integrity of a house having historic connections with a succession of employees of Captain Thomas Joseph Walker JP DL (1839-1913) of Tykillen House including William Griffin (----), 'Land Steward' (NA 1901); and Matthew "Mat" Murphy (d. 1947), 'Gardener [and] Domestic Servant' (NA 1911).