Building Description:

The Old Parochial House is part of a Victorian ecclesiastical complex around the Sacred Heart Church by GC Ashlin and EW Pugin. The building stands in its own grounds with front and rear gardens and a red brick and sandstone pedestrian entrance with a carved stone pendant displaying the date of construction. Wrought-iron gates survive. The house itself is a detached three-bay two-storey gable-fronted dwelling with a breakfront end bay to front (east) with hipped roof canted bay window. Three-bay elevation to side (south) has a gabled end bay with hipped roof canted bay window. The gabled ended bays to rear (west) has single-storey flat-roofed porch extension which is highly sympathetic and may have been added shortly after initial construction. The roof is of slate roofs with red brick chimneystacks, carved stone gable copings with finials to gables.

The brickwork on the building uses many types of brick - yellow, red, vitrified set in a Flemish bond. String courses are of yellow brick and ashlar sandstone at sill and impost levels. The windows are camber-headed opes with chamfered sandstone sills and lintels, stepped red brick reveals and one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows. The windows at first floor level have pointed arch window opes with red brick relieving arches over carved sandstone hood moulding and tympanum. The front door is via a square-headed red brick and sandstone porch with a limestone threshold.

This parochial house was built for the priest of the neighbouring Roman Catholic Church. Both were designed by Pugin and Ashlin in 1868. It is a fine example of Pugin's work (Ashlin's input is thought to have been minimal here) and was built while the neighboring church was under construction. A new parochial house was built during the 1990s and was sold to the current owners.

Brief Description of Project:

The Society pledged €4,000 for the conservation works for the Old Parochial House. Much of the work requires scaffolding to conserve work at height, especially the repointing of perpendicular joints over window heads. Without repointing, these joints allow water ingress which is damaging the interior historic joinery.