The Church of the Assumption of our Blessed Lady, Tullamore, 1906-2006

[A published book with the
pictures of the old church is available from the Offaly Historical at Bury
Quay, beside Tullamore Dew Heritage Centre]

 Michael Byrne

Church of the Assumption

Tullamore Catholic Parish celebrates in October 2006 the centenary of a church which has been a significant architectural landmark for the town and district.  Much more so it is for so many Tullamore people a place of devotion and recollection and of memories of joy and sadness over so many years. As to sadness not least back in October 1983 when the second church on the Chapel Street/Harbour Street site was destroyed in a fire which saw little survive except the spire. This second church was completed in  October 1906 and is on the site of a church built about 1802.  The third church which incorporates the spire of the old church and most of the stonework at the lower level was completed in August 1986 and as to the interior is contemporary in design.

Little is recorded of the pre-1902 church in historical sources unlike that of the 1906 church the progress of which from the foundation stone in 1898 to its completion eight years later was well documented. Although this church was largely destroyed twenty three years ago the memory of it is still green for many people.  For some it is perhaps a special event such as a marriage, funeral or a christening.  For others it may be ‘the Missionsermon’ or the old crib at Christmas time. The old confessionals may hold memories of solace or discomfiture.  For the great majority it will be daily or Sunday mass and the many other devotions, from the Confraternity to the Women’s Sodality,  that seemed to absorb a fair share of one’s waking hours in the Ireland of the pre-1970s and early 1980s.  For mass servers of the 1960s it will be serving First Friday mass at 6.30a.m. on a frosty morning or 7.00a.m on Sundays.

Church building in the Tullamore district began with the Early Christian foundation at Durrow in the middle of the sixth century.  The old Durrow church, now after a long struggle under restoration as a visitors centre, and dating back to the 1700s and earlier was probably built on the site of the first church in the parish.  The Durrow High Cross of  c. 850 AD is the oldest religious relic in the parish with the exception of the seventh- century Book of Durrow, now in Trinity College, and which was removed from Durrow in the early seventeenth century.  The Reformation had taken place in the mid–sixteenth century and saw the end of tolerated Catholic worship in the parish church at Durrow and the chapel of ease at Kilbride. Both now passed into the ownership and use of the Established Anglican Church.  It was over 200 years before another Catholic church was built in the parish.  Its location at Ballyduff meant it was close to Tullamore, a town which was by the late eighteenth century starting to grow and had a population of perhaps 4,000.
The Ballyduff church was not so near as would attract unwelcome attention from the authorities at a time when the enforcement of the Penal Laws preventing Catholics enjoying religious freedom had eased. This, the  first post-Reformation Catholic church in the Tullamore area was a small T-shaped building some of the walls of which are still standing in the immediate vicinity of the new Axis Business Park.

 By the 1790s further reliefs had been granted to Catholics so that in 1794, Charles William Bury, Tullamore’s landlord, was able to offer free of charge (but without the security of a long lease) the present site at Chapel Street and behind the new William Street which had, in 1790, been laid out for house building.   At that time neither Harbour Street nor the harbour had been constructed.  The site was in the back of the town in a poor area and away from the finer houses in the town centre and the southern side approaching the demesne of Charleville where the town’s landlord resided.  By all accounts the new church was a fine building, to which additions were made in 1808 and again before 1850.  In 1808 the then parish priest, Fr Kearney, petitioned the directors of the Grand Canal Company for a contribution towards the building of an addition to the chapel because ‘the enlargement of the chapel has in part become necessary from the great number of people that resort it, in proceeding to your passage boats, more particularly from the province of Connaught, and also the large portion of the labouring poor employed on your works, whose morals, if not attended to, might become so depraved as to endanger the security of your extensive works, which tho’ executed with great judgment, are still vulnerable in many parts’.  Fr Kearney’s entreaties, some might say threats, did not go without notice and he received £50 from the canal company for the church building fund.  The church must have been in a good state of repair by 1815 because it was now possessed of an organ suitable for a concert as is recorded in the recollections of   William Joseph O’Neill Daunt who was born in Tullamore in 1807. O’Neill Daunt, the friend of Daniel O’Connell, records in his memoirs his conversion to Catholicism while growing up in Tullamore in the early 1800s.

 The first place of worship to which, in early childhood, I was brought was the Catholic church in Tullamore, the servant who attended me being herself a Catholic.  Born of Protestant parents, and nurtured in the house of a Protestant grandmother, I had scarcely passed the years of infancy when I felt the strongest desire to be a member of the Catholic Church.  I do not remember when this desire began; but of this I am sure, that it was not produced by any external influences, such as the solicitations of Catholic servants or friends.  When I was about eight [in 1815] I was brought one night to the Catholic church to hear a Mr. Wilman, a Dublin musician, perform sacred music on the organ.  With our party was a Protestant boy, named William Dawson, whom I had a great desire to impress with the belief that I was a Catholic….  “Why,” he said, surprised, “are you a Catholic?” “Yes,” said I; and so I truly was in affection and desire…  My teachers had represented the Catholic religion as perfectly unscriptural.  I found in the book-room of my grandmother’s house [in High Street] an old Douai catechism printed by Flynn, at Cork, in 1776, and I eagerly read it.  I shall never forget the pleasure with which I verified the scriptural quotations in the catechism.  I was then about ten or eleven years old. Meanwhile, my desire to be incorporated into the Catholic Church became a passion.  It absorbed nearly all my thoughts.  I used to look with a feeling like envy at the peasantry around me who could go to Mass, and possessed a privilege from which I was debarred by family influences… In 1826 my father died, and his death removed one obstacle to the public avowal of my religious predilections. But other obstacles remained.  I used to shut myself up in my room, praying to God to remove them.  I loved to haunt the Catholic chapels.  I have gone into Father Mathew’s old chapel in Cork in the dusk of a summer evening, and sat there when not a worshipper except myself was present.  Whence came this resistless impulse?  This rushing tide of enthusiastic love for the Catholic Church?   In boyhood I had learned the Hail Mary from the old Douai catechism already mentioned, and, unknown to all around me, I habitually associated that touching prayer with my ordinary devotions.  I was finally received into the Catholic Church in Cork by my dear and venerated friend Father Mathew, and soon afterwards I received the sacrament of Confirmation from the Bishop of Cork, Dr. Murphy, in the chapel of the Blackrock Convent.

Thomas Lacy who published an account of Ireland in the 1850s visited Tullamore in 1855 and described the first Catholic church on the site (see illustration) as a ‘large structure, upon which improvements have been made from time to time, which has the effect of interfering to a considerable extent with its original style.  Its main feature as it appears at present, are those of Grecian style of architecture.  It is 120 feet in length, by 75 in breadth. . . ’ 

Father Hugh Behan, the parish priest in the 1890s, had mooted the idea of a new church in
1898 as the old church had fallen into serious disrepair.  The original cost of the project was
estimated at £15,000, although at completion it ran £13,000 over budget coming in at £28,000.  While the foundation stone had been laid in 1898 progress was slow at first. The town was recovering from a long period of depression which had seen the population fall below 5,000 in 1891.   Building work began in January 1902 almost three years after the death of Father Behan, who was succeeded by Father Philip Callary – now recalled in the name Callary Street. The Church of the Assumption, Tullamore, was opened on Rosary Sunday, 7   October 1906 and in design was the concept of two of Ireland’s distinguished architects, William Hague, and his pupil and late junior partner, Thomas F. McNamara. Hague had designed churches at Trim, Dunshaughlin, Termonfeckin and Cathedral House at Mullingar while McNamara had carried out the less successful Kinnegad church and a better earlier work, Castletown Geoghegan church.  Hague’s best known work is the French Gothic style cathedral of St Eunan’s in Letterkenny.  One architectural historian, writing after the fire of 1983 and  the decision of the local authority to demolish the east and west gables of the church on safety grounds, stated that  ‘works  of an equivalent elaboration and richness to St Eunan’s  and Tullamore church will never be built in Ireland again’.  Tullamore church was he noted ‘one of McNamara’s richest and most successful designs’ after the style of his senior partner, the Cavan born, William Hague.  Building work at Tullamore was carried out by James Wynne of Dundalk and the church was in use at Christmas 1905 when nine people were baptised. The last stone of the new church was uplifted to the spire on Holy Thursday 1906 and the cross placed in its position (209 feet up) by one of the curates, Fr. Fitzsimons.  The new church was designed to accommodate 1,600 persons, with another 500 on special occasions. 

 The Most Reverend Doctor Gaughran, the newly elected Bishop of Meath, dedicated the new church on October 7 1906, an autumn day filled with sunshine.   In his sermon to the packed congregation, Fr John Brady, PP of Dunboyne said that the community of Tullamore had very much made the building of the church a work of their very own. He noted that there had been no break in the work, no flagging of zeal. ‘You have done a great work’ he said, adding ‘with stone and marble and stained glass, with brass and silver and with gold you have written in bold characters the story of your faith and your love’.  Father Philip Callary P.P. assisted in the service of consecration. Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament followed the mass.

 The dedication of the new church was considered the ‘most remarkable event that occurred in the parish within living memory. . . At night the town was illuminated… there was scarcely a window which did not shine brightly, and indeed the whole scene was a remarkable manifestation of the faith of the Catholics of the county town. The splendid band of St Conleth’s, Philipstown [Daingean Reformatory]  was present, by special arrangement and played a charming selection of music.  The band of the Tullamore Trade and Labour Association also played through the town, and a large crowd kept walking the lighted streets until a late hour’.

 A description of the church in The Irish Builder (20 Oct. 1906) is worth reproducing.

A large and important church was dedicated on Sunday week by the Most Revd. Dr. Gaughran, Bishop of Meath, at Tullamore.  The church, which has but recently been completed, was designed by the late Mr William Hague, and built under the supervision of Mr. T.F. McNamera, of Dublin.  The building, which is Gothic, is about 200 feet from the ground, 172 feet is the length from outside east wall to the west door, the nave 36 feet wide, side aisles 18 feet wide each.  The sanctuary has on each side two chapels, behind one of which is the sacristy, and near the other a well-lighted room reserved for the nuns who have easy access to their convent.  The chancel arch rests on two columns and smaller pillars of Galway granite.  Over the altars the groined roof is of fibrous plaster, while that of the centre is of pitch pine.  The windows contain cathedral glass, and perfection appears to have been reached in the ventilation, heating, and lighting, the last being by means of electric installation.  At the west end is the organ, an instrument the look of which is in harmony with the whole edifice, and was supplied by Telford, of Dublin.  The High Alter is a magnificent proof of the sculptor’s art.  It is of Sicilian marble with panels of Carara and shafts of Cork and Connemara marble, the artists being Messrs. Malone, also of Dublin.  There are already also stained glass windows and the Stations, in oils.  The stone materials were taken from the local quarries and, as far as possible, local tradesmen and labourers were employed throughout. . .

In 1930 the walls of the sanctuary were decorated in mosaics at a cost of over £2,500, by the firm of Oppenheimer of Manchester, who were responsible for other work in the diocese of Meath, including the cathedral at Mullingar.  In 1970 the Tullamore church was sandblasted and pointed and the spire repaired.  In 1972 the organ, considered to be one of the finest in the midland counties, was completely rebuilt under the supervision of Mr Kenneth Jones and at the instigation of the then parish priest, Monsignor Denis Clarke.  In
1977 the sanctuary of the church was reconstructed in accordance with modern day liturgical requirements as well as redecorated and rewired. Improvements were made to the grounds also. All this was to change in the early hours of the 31^st of October 1983 when the Church of the Assumption was destroyed by fire. By morning all that remained was a burnt out shell. 

Edward N Smith and Partners, architects, were selected by the then parish priest, Fr P Fallon, to design the new church.  The architect’s brief was to re-build the church in such a way as ‘retain or regain as much as possible of the character of the old church but in a modern idiom’. This was next to impossible to achieve.  He reused much of the old stonework especially on the Chapel Street side and went for a contemporary interior. What was lost of the Gothic exterior and interior was replaced in the self finished timber ceilings and laminated structural frames of the interior.  Full restoration of the exterior was not possible in the 1980s.  For many the most attractive feature of the new church was the warm and modern interior with its timber spans. John Flanagan & Sons Limited was appointed builders and work began in October 1984 and was completed for the opening of the present and third church on the Harbour Street site in August 1986.  The new church had cost £2.6 million with the surplus after all collections and donations placed in a trust fund for the continuing upkeep of the church into the future.

The Offaly Historical and Archaeological Society has pleasure in presenting to the public a reproduction of a souvenir booklet of the early part of the last century depicting the old church now being celebrated.  The work of the Society is to serve as a storehouse of community and family history and to make it available to a wide public so as to help people to appreciate what they have and where it came from.  Our thanks to Fr Sean McGearty, for many years a curate in Tullamore, and now in Australia, who did so much to kindle interest in church records.  Thanks also to Breda Hoey for a copy of the original booklet.  To Brid Broderick for her input on the works of art in the present church and finally to the parish priest, Fr Sean Heaney, for his support. A more detailed treatment of the history of the church was published almost twenty years ago.*

 

* Michael Byrne, Tullamore Catholic Parish: a historical survey (Tullamore, 1987)

 

A Walk through Tullamore: the view in 1980

Michael Byrne

PREFACE

Interest in Irish history is growing rapidly.  The Offaly towns are all relatively modern and generally owe their origins to the plantations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  Tullamore appears to have been one of the last of the Offaly towns to develop; its growth is
difficult to document for a period much earlier than 1700.  Yet, within a little over a hundred years it became the largest town in the county. This study is mainly concerned with the physical development of Tullamore between 1700 and 1900.  I have written the book in the form of a walking tour so as to encourage readers to look at the remains of several centuries of development.  Visitor and native are invited to observe an evolving landscape in a  middle sized Irish town.  The tour is a long one and it is recommended that it be taken in two stages or even broken up further as suits.

There are, perhaps, some who will be disappointed on seeing no references to Charleville castle or the other interesting historical remains in the area.  It is intended to look at the countryside about Tullamore in a second volume, now in course of preparation.  This study is strictly confined to an area between the canal on the north and the railway line on the south.

This book is no more than a summary of the history of Tullamore, yet its publication would not have been possible without the assistance of a considerable number of people.  I should like to record my thanks to D.E. Williams Ltd. for their generous sponsorship of this publication.  I am indebted to Lakeland Tourism for their help in the erection of signs about the town to facilitate the tourist and native alike.  I wish to thank Oliver Connolly for the drawings, Noel Doran of Eugene Garvey and Partners for the map and Richard May for the photographs.  Numerous individuals assisted in various ways and my only regret is that I cannot name all of them.  I am grateful to Brendan Broderick, Miss Geraldine Clarke, W.B. Hutton-Bury, Seamus Houlihan, Edward MacParland, Brian Mahon, James Scully, Jim and Eileen Scully and John Sweeney.  Finally, I want to express my thanks to the librarian and staff of the Offaly County Library for their unfailing help and courtesy over several years.

M.B., Convent View, Tullamore.

 

INTRODUCTION

 

The town of Tullamore occupies a central position in County Offaly and is the capital town since 1833.  The town is situated on the Tullamore river which divides it into more or less two halves.  To the north is the gravel ridge, the Eiscir Riada (the chariot ridge), known locally as the Arden hills and to the south the Slieve Bloom mountains.  On the east and west lie the flat boglands relieved only on the eastern side by the stump of an extinct volcano now known as Croghan hill.

The name Tullamore or Tulach Mhor, meaning the big mound or hill, probably refers to Hop hill, a natural mound, near the town, and now the site of St Catherine’s church.  In the eighteenth century the town was also known as Tullamoore, a name introduced by former owners of the town, the Moore family.

 

The 17th Century

The town is part of the ancient district of Fer Call which was ruled by the Gaelic family of Molloy.  Two members of a branch of this family, Susanna and Matilda O’Molloy, daughters of Donald O’Molloy who had married Elizabeth Cowley (daughter of an English settler) sold the property to John Moore of Croghan about 1609.  Moore was the son and heir of Thomas Moore an Elizabethan soldier defending Croghan castle in 1599.  Tullamore in the 1620s was no more than a very small village with a water mill and a castle (site unknown).  The Moore family continued to reside at Croghan  and in 1633 they leased their Tullamore property for 81 years to a relation by marriage, Sir Robert Forth.  In 1641 Forth built a house was demolished in the 1800s and replaced by evidence for anything more than a small village at Tullamore throughout the seventeenth century.  The population probably did not exceed 400 (about the same as Philipstown now Daingean and about half that of Parsonstown now Birr.

 

Growth in the early 18th century

The town grew at a moderate pace in the first half of the eighteenth century.  For an explanation of this one may look to a general quickening of the pace of economic development throughout the country but more particularly to the fact that John Moore (to become the first Lord Tullamore in 1715) built a house in the area of what is now O’Carroll Street about 1700 and also the fact that a military barrack to house 100 foot soldiers was built in the vicinity of the present Garda station in 1716.  In the 1720s the Moore family had a church erected in the area known as the Shambles (roughly the site of the Foresters hall and to the west of it).  At this time the town probably consisted of no more than a long street running from the new church Bridge Street, High Street and O’Connor Square were
more or less built up.  During this period the town experienced some industrial development based primarily on the processing of agricultural raw material, for example a tanning industry was in operation in what is now Tanyard Lane in the 1750s and a linen factory in Church Street at about the same time.  Despite these developments the rate of growth was slow especially after 1764 when Charles Moore, the first earl of Charleville, died.

 

An improving landlord

Charles Moore was married but died without issue and his 20,000 acre estate in the King’s County passed to his sister’s husband,  John Bury of Shannongrove, Co. Limerick.     However,  John Bury died soon after and the Bury property in Limerick and the Moore property in King’s County were inherited by Charles William Bury, a minor and less than a year old.  Few buildings were erected during the landlord’s minority which lasted until 1785.  The latter year is remarkable for several reasons: it could be said to mark the beginning of a period of phenomenal growth which many Irish towns experienced and which lasted until 1815; it was the year Bury came of age and therefore empowered to grant leases and generally develop his property; it was the year of the Tullamore balloon fire.

 

From the balloon fire to the Famine

The fire in Tullamore which occurred on Tuesday 10 May 1785 is perhaps the best known but most misunderstood aspect of Tullamore history.  The fire was caused by an air balloon taking fire in what was possibly only the third attempt to make an ascent in Ireland.  This led to the destruction of about 100 houses in the Barrack Street (now Patrick Street) area.  Probably about one-third of the housing stock was destroyed if one assumes a total housing stock in the town of about 300 with a population of roughly 2,000.  A few houses in Barrack Street survived the fire including the house now used as the head office of the Williams Group. About a week after the fire the landlord C.W. Bury arrived in the town and distributed £550 to relieve those in distress.  In a sense the fire was a long term benefit because it gave the landlord the impetus to develop the town in a proper manner, an opportunity of which he availed to the full over the next fifty years until his death in 1835.  The period between the fire in 1785 and the Famine (1845-9) were the years of expansion.  The population expanded three-fold and stood at 6,343 in 1841.  The new streets – Columcille Street, Harbour Street, Cormac Street, O’Moore Street, Church Street (lower) were laid out on the grid pattern with attention given to frontage and roof-line.  The landlord had a town hall erected in O’Connor Square in 1789 and contributed half the cost of the new church of St Catherine’s which was opened in 1815.  The Catholic church (on the same site as the present one) was opened before 1802.  The high point of Bury’s achievement was reached in 1833 when he succeeded in having Tullamore made a county town.  The county jail was opened in 1830; work on the county court-house began in 1833 and was completed in 1835.

The fifty-year period 1785-1835 was also one of significant economic development.  The coming of the Grand Canal in 1798 was of major importance in that it gave the town a direct link with Dublin for the first time.  The period also saw the development of Michael Molloy’s distillery (later B. Daly) from small beginnings in the 1790s.  The town continued to be an important centre – evidence of which survives in the landlord’s provision of a second market square, an unusual town feature.

The famine took its toll especially in the slum district on the Puttaghan side of the canal.  The next fifty years saw the population decline and the town stagnate.  The population had dropped to 4,522 in 1891 but thereafter conditions improved and the first increase in a half-century was recorded in 1901.

 

The 20th century

In the present century the population has continued to expand (perhaps the most useful indicator of economic conditions) and in 1971 stood at 7,474.  It is now acknowledged to be
about 8,500.  It may be said in passing that the expansion of the town’s population is no natural progression.  The population of Birr has fallen since 1901, while Portlaoise, Athlone and Mullingar have grown more rapidly than Tullamore.  The character of the town has
changed: the building schemes of the Tullamore U.D.C. have led to the rehousing of many families outside the traditional town boundaries.  The town’s many lanes, once teeming with people, have been cleared and some now serve as car parks.  On the industrial side it is difficult to make any assessment as yet, but it may be said that the firms of D.E. Williams
Ltd., Tullamore Yarns Ltd., and the Midland Butter and Bacon Co. Ltd. have all made an important contribution to stability and growth.  Also of value to the town but even more so to the county, are Bord na Mona and the E.S.B.   In recent years increasing reliance has been placed on international firms, which have established factories here, to generate new industrial employment.  In the growth league table Tullamore fell back in the 1960s and early 1970s but is now developing rapidly.

 

Conservation and amenity

The town has yet to produce a sensible, coherent conservation policy.  The current town plan is largely concerned with infrastructure.  Of course, if a solution to the town’s traffic problems were found it would take the strain off the historic town centre.  The U.D.C. has concentrated its attention on beautifying  the canal banks, and with good results.  Efforts are now being made to improve the streets of the town by planting trees and perhaps a small park in O’Connor Square.  Should a second edition of this guide be required in years to come perhaps it may require assistance from a dendrochonologist!

 

 

BRIDGE STREET

The Tullamore river divides the town in half, but the northern side of the river has a greater density of population.  It is probable that the town has its origins in a river crossing of the 17th century.  It has been suggested that the oldest bridge in the town is that behind the county library in O’Connor Square but this cannot be confirmed.  The bridge at Bridge Street was certainly in use by 1748 when the landlord gave a building lease for the house between the lane and Adams’ chemist shop.  The river had several water mills including the manor mill located about 50 yards from the bridge on the western side.  During  the drainage scheme of the 1850s this was removed.  The only water mill now surviving in the town is that further down the river in the old distillery.  The river is said to be less polluted than formerly.  As far back as 1768 the then local authority, the town’s manor court, noted: ‘Whereas upon complaint made this day to the grand jury that William Keoug, skinner, hath and does make a practise of throwing dead carcases and other filth into the river of Tullamore, we present that the said manor do remove all such dirt and filth out of said river…’  Pollution cannot have been too severe as how otherwise are we to explain the name, the Maiden Bridge Street, along with the upper part of Church Street and High Street are the oldest streets in the town.  The width of a street is often a good indicator of age.  Bridge Street, was in fact, much narrower but was widened in 1938 when part of Dann’s tea rooms was removed (now Tormey and Adams).

 

Bridge House

The houses in Bridge Street are almost all of an early date.  The Bridge House originally consisted of three distinct buildings, some of which may date back to the 1720s.  The present facade of red brick with elaborate limestone dressings was erected in 1910 for P. & H. Egan Ltd.  With Gleeson’s shop in Columcille Street the two fronts reflect the increased prosperity of Irish towns in the first decade of this century, and the changes taking place in Irish retailing.  The age when clay pipes lolled shop windows was being left behind.  Until the 1960s the Bridge House was the headquarters of P. & H. Egan Ltd., a family business established in 1852, and involved in agri-business, mineral waters, wine and spirits and retailing.  The shop here was considered to be the finest in the town.  The company went into voluntary liquidation in the late 1960s.

 

Douglas and Lawless

Beside the Bridge House is a building erected by Maurice Tyrrell, a tanner, in 1747.  In 1777 the owner of the house was instructed to rebuild the chimneys because they were considered ‘public nuisances by not being kept regularly swept.  It is alleged they are so narrow as not to admit a boy to get up’.  There is an inscription over the entrance door to Douglas’ jewellery shop.

 

 

Hoey and Denning

This house was built about 1756 by John Vaughan, a merchant.  Vaughan bequeathed the house to his two daughters for use in their marriage settlements.  The house was then divided into two parts and in the southern end one Joseph Flanagan established a distillery, not later than 1782.

 

Tullamore distillery

The distillery buildings, some of which are still standing, were erected on the back garden of Flanagan’s house which extended to the river.  The distillery went out of production in the 1800s but was re-established in 1829, as is shown on the entrance gate in the lane beside the Hoey and Denning building.  Production in the 1840s and 1850s suffered because of the temperance campaign and the rise in the spirit duty.  However, the distillery was considerably expanded in the 1870s to cater for a growing export market.  Aside from the years 1925 to 1937 the distillery was in production until 1954. The passing of the distillery was a matter of regret because of the long association of the industry with the town.  On the other hand its demise may be seen as part of an evolutionary process because since the late 1940s the town has been associated with the production of Irish Mist (more about this below).  The distillery chimneys can be seen from the Distillery Lane beside Hoey and Denning.  Access to the distillery is closed to the public because of the
dangerous condition of some of the buildings.

 

Bank of Ireland

The Bank of Ireland has carefully restored and improved this building.  The conservation work here represents a turning point in the town’s attitude to its architectural heritage.  That portion of the building in the less than brilliant Portland stone represents the original Hibernian Bank branch established here in 1864.  The Bank of Ireland opened a ‘second class’ branch at High Street in 1836.  In recent years the bank acquired adjoining buildings, including a yellow-brick building in O’Connor Square.  This gothic-style building was erected for T.P. & R. Goodbody in the early 1870s.  The Goodbodys sensibly decided to have warehouse features at the front because of poor or non-existent facilities at the rear of the building.  So faithfully have the bank’s architects sought to reproduce the original facade that a new hoist has been placed under the gablet.

 

O’CONNOR SQUARE

The gradual development of this area into a square is reflected in the variety of names it has had.  In 1713 it was simply known as the Market Place.  Building on the southern side began in the 1740s when the L – plan house west of the post office was built by Matthew Moore, a soap boiler and tallow chandler.  A building on the site of the post office was erected in the 1750s as also was the next house with the round-headed Gibbsian doorcase.  The last house, before Tanyard Lane, was not erected until 1786.

 

Library and civic offices

This was formerly a Vocational school and was erected in 1937.  A very fine three-storey, seven-bay building stood on the site until 1936.  In 1750 Thomas Wilson, a quaker, carried on business here as a wool comber and tanner.  In the 1760s it became the property of Gideon Tabuteau who had come from Southampton and was of French huguenot   extraction.    It was here that Benjamin Yeats, ancestor of the poet, married Mary Butler.  In 1788 Tabuteau sold the property to Joseph Manley who erected a brewery and a maltings.

 

TANYARD LANE

Tanyard Lane has always been an industrial rather than a residential area.  The changes in manufacturing activity here nicely reflects the development of industry over two centuries.  The location is accounted for by the availability of a water supply from the river.  The tanneries had closed by the end of the eighteenth century but had been replaced by two breweries and several malting establishments.  It is not clear as to when the two breweries ceased operation, but the maltings continued to function until recent times.  Malsters were able to send their malt to Guinness by canal when the local breweries ceased production.  A walk through the Tanyard and a check on the inscriptions on the buildings indicates just how important the malting business was to the economy of the town early in this century.  Many of the present buildings date from the 1900s.

Return to O’Connor Square again to the north side, we find two three-storey houses with round-headed doorcases.  These were built between 1786 and 1810.

The Market House

Market House, O’Connor Square

The market house or town hall, built by the earl of Charleville, is certainly the most important building in the square.  It is a two-storey, seven-bay building with a pedimented central breakfront.  On the roof is an octagonal timber lantern with a lead dome.  The arches on the ground floor have been glazed in.  The indefatigable John Wesley gave a sermon here in 1789 and recorded in his journal: ‘About noon I preached in the beautiful new court house at Tullamore.  Deep attention sat on the rich as well as the poor…’ In 1821 a loan fund bank (akin to a credit union) was established here and surplus funds from it were used to erect a clock in the 1840s. With the building of the market house the square was completed, assuming that the two houses to the east of it were erected at the same time.  On the post office or southern side of the square houses were built at both ends about 1786.  Joseph Flanagan, the distiller, was responsible for building the property from Dunne’s shoe shop to Barry Keegan’s in 1787.  He had a 999-year lease from the earl of Charleville and when the building was completed Flanagan let it to undertenants for ‘short’ leases of 31 years.  An inscription may be seen over the coach entrance of Dunne’s shop.

HIGH STREET

As with O’Connor Square we have rushed into High Street.  However, I wish to start on the other side at G.N. Walsh’s car show rooms.  It must be said that here, as also in O’Connor Square and Bridge Street, almost all the houses were erected in the eighteenth century.  When Arthur Young made his unnecessarily brief remarks about the town in 1776 he noted that part of Tullamore was well built.  He was surely referring to the High Street-O’Connor Square area.

 

G.N. Walsh car show rooms

This house with its projecting wing at the front is similar to the house beside the post office and could be as early as 1720.  The next house was built in 1786 by the town’s leading business man in the late eighteenth century, Thomas Manley.  At the time Manley also owned the car showrooms house.  Manley was a quaker, as also were the owners of the property in the 19th century, T.P. & R. Goodbody.  The two Goodbody brothers were members of a remarkable family who had a profound influence on the economy of the nearby town of Clara.  The Goodbodys established a tobacco factory here in the mid-19th century and employed up to 200 men.  There may still be a few people about who remember such delightfully named tobacco mixtures as ‘York River’, ‘Bird’s Eye’ and ‘Golden Shag’.   Unfortunately for Tullamore, the factory was destroyed by fire in 1886.  The factory was rebuilt but at Greenville, Dublin.  In 1929, the firm, then in liquidation, was taken over by the Dundalk firm of P.J. Carroll.

Brewery Tap

The site of this house was leased to a tobacco spinner in 1713 but the house may have been rebuilt in the 1780s.  A brewery was established here in the 1830s when William Deverell
transferred from a premises further up High Street.  The brewery continued to function until the first world war.  In the 1880s it was capable of turning out from 30 to 40 barrels per day and employed 50 men at not less than £1,600 a year in wages!

Next to the Brewery Tap is G.N. Walsh’s shop, probably built before 1786, and an R.I.C. barrack in the last century.  The premises of Messrs. Conway and Kearney, solicitors, has a doorcase with fluted doric columns and a fanlight.  The building dates from the 1780s but the doorcase may be later.  Further up the street are McGinns and Tuttys which both have nice shopfronts with fasciaboards and console brackets.  The Ulster Bank was opened in 1892 and rebuilt in recent years.

Bank of Ireland

Beside the Ulster Bank is the Italianate-style old Bank of Ireland premises.  The limestone facade of two storeys replaced a front of three storeys and was erected in 1870.  It is often worthwhile to look at buildings from the back as well as the front for evidence of  rebuilding.     The Bank of Ireland premises provides a good example for those interested in such an exercise.

Beside this building is the three-storey County Arms erected about 1786.

Hibernian Insurance and others

At this point it would be well to take a look at the eastern side of High Street before proceeding further. After Dunne’s shop is a fine three-storey, seven-bay house with a Gibbsian doorcase.  This house was built in 1750 for Colonel Thomas Crow.  Next is the Ritz cinema built in 1946 at a cost of £30,000.  The cinema seats 1,200 and was remarkably good for a provisional town in the post-war years.  Further up is a private residence of two storeys over a basement built in the 1780s.   Beside it are the showrooms of J.A. Kilroy and Sons.  Behind the facade of c. 1959 was an interesting early 18th century building.

Christian Brothers house

This is a large three-storey, five-bay house over a basement and was erected in 1789 by Revd Dr Thomas Wilson, professor of natural philosophy at Trinity College, Dublin.  Dr Wilson married a daughter of Nicholas Crawford, the Tullamore barrack master, who lived
in the house next door now used as furniture show rooms.  Wilson is reported to have spent £2,000 on the house – his wife’s marriage portion.   One of the children of the marriage, Jane Wilson, married Joseph Daunt of Co. Cork and it was in this house that the politician and historian, O’Neill Daunt, was born in 1807.  On the back garden of the house is the Christian Brothers secondary school for boys, erected in 1960.

It will be noticed that at this point the street line changes on the eastern side.  There is evidence to suggest that the houses from Allen’s shop to Horan’s shop were built in the 1750s.  The same holds true of the houses between the entrance to the car park at Tara Street and the Presbyterian church (with the exception of the two houses nearest the church on the town side).

The Round House

An interesting house is the bow-fronted Round House with the Gibbsian doorcase.  We already saw a doorcase of similar style in O’Connor Square.  The houses here could be as early as 1720.  Edward Crow lived here in the 1780s.  Crow was responsible for the building of Crow Street (now Tara Street) of which nothing survives except the gable wall of a Methodist church, near the entrance to the Garden of Eden dance hall.

CROW STREET

The Crow Street houses were built about 1810.  In the 18th century this road led to the demesne of Revd Daniel Jackson which may have been located near the railway line and was described in 1766 as ‘a large convenient, well furnished house, containing twelve rooms on the first two floors, with closets to five of them, besides hall and pantry; with all necessary out-offices, stables, coach-house, dairy, laundry, brew-house, hen-house, and bleach yard; with out-rooms for men servants and store rooms; a large garden, well walled in, with several divisions planted with all kinds of fruit trees; likewise fish ponds, well stocked, and a large pigeon-house…’ In a memoir of O’Neill Daunt, his grandmother, Mrs Wilson, provides us with a nice account of life for the better off in the 18th century.  She says of Mr Jackson’s house: ‘His apartments were furnished expensively and with elegance.  There were paintings by foreign artists, and ornamental china.  Mrs Jackson’s dressing-room was a perfect toy-shop of recherche nicknackery.  The domestic staff included a butler, two footmen, a coachman, three gardeners, a housekeeper, two housemaids and a waiting-maid, besides the kitchen officials.  Breakfast was at nine, dinner at three, tea at six, after which cards filled the time until ten, when supper was served…’ Nothing now survives of the house but I thought the above worth reproducing because it illustrates the social life of the period.  More importantly, it points to how much the landscape below the dance hall has changed.  The large bonded warehouse beside the grain drums was built in 1870 on the site of a gazebo probably connected with the Jackson establishment.  Behind the dance hall is a field with broiler houses on it, erected in the 1960s.  In a deed of 1761 the field was described as the island meadow surrounded by a mill race and the river.  The mill race now ‘serves’ as a dangerously polluted drain.  Near the bonded warehouse is a corn mill erected in the 1800s.  These buildings are all on the distillery property and some are in a dangerous condition.

The Presbyterian church

Leaving the now deserted Crow Street we proceed to an attractive, plain church with pedimented ashlar facade and a projecting enclosed porch of identical design.  The church was built for £300 and opened in 1865.  The now-amusing Victorian equation of class with intelligence is apparent in a newspaper report of the opening ceremony: ‘About 160 persons of a respectable and intelligent class attended the opening services on Friday, and were all comfortably seated’.

Motor works house

Opposite the church is a three-storey, five-bay house built about 1758.  In the 1820s and 1830s the house was used as a classical school for boarding and day boys preparing for university.  Later in the century the very fine De Burgo O’Malley chalice (now in the National Museum) was found in a chest in the attic.

Marian Hostel

The houses between the Motor Works house and J.J. Horan’s shop are all late 18th century and early 19th century in date.  Part of what is now the Marian hostel was once a boarding school.  It has also the distinction of being the first house in Tullamore to install piped water when it became available in 1895.  Prior to that time householders had to depend on wells which it was alleged were contaminated with seeping sewage.

CORMAC STREET

Apart from one or two houses in Patrick Street we have now viewed all the mid-eighteenth century houses in the town.  Almost all of the remaining houses in the main streets of the town were built between 1786 and 1840.

Acres Hall

We should now be standing outside a very handsome house built in 1786 by Thomas Acres.  The house faces down O’Moore Street and has a lawn in front.  It was considered to be the finest in Tullamore in the 19th century but now there are several others which could compete for the title.  Acres was a remarkable man about whom little is known of his early life other than that he was in some way connected to the earl of Charleville.  He was responsible for building Cormac Street, O’Moore Street, Columcill Street, and less successfully, Offaly Street and Chapel Lane.   Acres was the town’s leading property developer over a 50-year period until his death in 1837.  Acres Hall may have been the first house to go up in Cormac Street.  On the back garden of the house, better observed from the court house, is a mock tower house known as Acres folly, and said to have been erected about 1812.  The houses between Acres Hall and Poole’s shop were built on the garden of Acres Hall and nearly all date from the 1800s.

Patrick Lloyd’s shop

However, close to Acres Hall are two houses built in 1899.  Worthy of special mention is Patrick Lloyd’s shop with well carved console brackets, and in front of the windows polished brass rods.

Brian P. Adams house and the terrace

On the opposite side of the street is a massive three-storey house over a basement with four bays to O’Moore Street and four bays to Cormac Street.  This was built about 1800 as
also was the terrace of six two-storey houses.  The houses were first used to accommodate the army during the Napoleonic war years when its size was greatly increased in preparation for an invasion from France.  A temporary barrack was built at the rear of the Cormac Street houses while the permanent barrack was located at Patrick Street.  Benjamin Woodward, the architect, was born in the house beside that of Brian P. Adams,
solicitor, in 1816.  His father was in the Meath militia and the family moved a few years later.

Kilcruttin graveyard

As one proceeds up Cormac Street past Poole’s shop a large field can be seen, in the southern corner of which is Kilcruttin graveyard.  The graveyard has been closed since 1893 and is now in a terrible condition.  There are about 60 tombstones here all of which date from the 1770s to the 1850s.  The most interesting tombstones here are those erected to members of the German legion in the first decade of the 19th century.  Also of interest, but in a deplorable state, is the Burgess mausoleum.*  It should, of course, be remembered that the number of slabs does not in any way represent the number of burials.  We are reminded of the horrors of the Famine years in a letter written by the Revd. E.F. Berry to the Tullamore board of guardians in 1852.  Berry wrote ‘ I beg leave to inform you that within the last few days I have been inspecting the graveyard of Kilcruttin where the greater number of persons who die in the Tullamore Poorhouse are buried, and I find that it is now so full that no more than 1,000 paupers have been buried within the last few years and according to Patrick Gorman’s return to me, 200 have been laid there within the past year…’

Almost immediately after the letter had been received, the earl of Charleville made land available at Clonminch for a graveyard (near the water tower) and also land at Arden Road
for a graveyard for the work-house.  However, Catholics continued to use the graveyards at Durrow and Kilbride until a graveyard was opened at Clonminch Road in 1893.

From Cormac Street a view can be obtained of the Tullamore river taking its meandering course towards Rahan where it meets the Clodiagh and eventually flows into the Brosna.  Once again in view, are the distillery buildings and the corn mill.  The modern, massive grain storage bins can also be seen.  No malt is made at Tullamore now.  This is a grain collection point where the grain is dried and stored until ready to be sent to a pneumatic plant at Banagher.  Between here and the railway line are three urban council schemes, Marian Place, Pearse Park, and O’Molloy Street.  The latter was erected on the site of houses built for army pensioners in the 1820s or 1830s.

* Both graveyard and mausoleum are much improved because of repair word carried out by the urban council in recent months.

The Court House

The building of a county court at Tullamore in 1833 signified complete victory in a 50-year old battle to have Tullamore designated the county town in place of Daingean (Philipstown) ten miles east of Tullamore, which was no longer considered suitable because of its remote location and poor accommodation facilities.  The owners of Daingean, the influential Ponsonby family, successfully defeated moves in the Irish house of commons to have the assizes transferred in 1784 and again in 1786.  The building of a county gaol at Tullamore in 1826 was seen as an essential preliminary in the transfer.  As soon as the gaol was completed it was argued that the county court house should follow, much to the chagrin of the Ponsonby family and the people of Daingean.  Lord Tullamore reckoned that the building of a county court house at Tullamore would bring as much as £500 profit to the town each time the assizes were held.  The Ponsonby influence was a great deal less at Westminister than it had been at College Green, and with the backing of the government an act was put through parliament in 1833 transferring the assizes to Tullamore.

The passing of the act confirmed the grand jury (the oligarchical predecessor of the Offaly County Council) in its intention to build a new court house at Tullamore, and in 1833 almost £10,000 was voted for this purpose.  Following a competition in which there were over 20 participants, J.B. Keane was named as the architect.  Keane’s plan was for a Grecian or neo-classical court house, not unlike that William Vitruvius Morrison had built at Tralee and Carlow.  Here, access had been provided to two semi-circular court rooms from corridors surrounding them.  Apparently, the prototype was Sir Robert Smirke’s Gloucester court house.  In a letter to the Irish Chief Secretary in 1829, Lord Tullamore wrote: ‘I have been at Exeter and shall visit Gloucester court-house, on my road to Ireland, for the purpose of adopting all the latest improvements.’  Lord Tullamore opted for a neo-classical design, but he would have preferred something more akin to the style of the gaol.  Writing to his wife in 1833 he remarked: ‘We have selected a capital plan of the court-house as far as internal accommodation and convenience, but with Grecian elevation, which I fear will clash with the gaol, but I could not get them to give a decent Saxon, Norman, rustic or Elizabethan plan!  The democratic party runs so high, that out of all the plans, all Grecian, we chose the plainest exterior, fearing a traverse of the assizes.  On the 29th we meet to declare a contractor…’  The court house was completed in 1835.  It was often remarked afterwards that it was virtually impossible to make oneself heard in either of the semi-circular court rooms.  Not that it prevented election meetings from being held there which were a great deal more boisterous than anything we know.

The visitor to the court house today will note that only one semi-circular court room survives – the crown court where criminal cases were tried.  The court house was burned in 1922 on the departure of the republican forces from the town.  The Free State government decided to rebuild and work began in 1925 under the supervision of the architect, T.F. McNamara.  He decided not to adhere to the original ground plan and only one of the semi-circular court rooms was retained.  The new building cost £32,000 and was opened in 1927.

County Gaol now Tullamore Yarns Ltd. 

Further up Cormac Street is the gothic-style facade of the old county gaol.  Behind the facade are modern factory buildings.  Gaols and workhouses are often viewed as the symbols of ‘British tyranny in Ireland’, but the truth is often complex.  The gaol at Tullamore was one of a number built in the first half of the 19th century as a result of the prison reform acts of 1810 and 1826.  In 1820 the King’s County Grand Jury appointed a committee ‘to fix upon a site and procure plans for a county gaol’.  A report on the Daingean gaol, then the county gaol, found it to be out of touch with the reforming spirit: ‘On the whole the establishment seems adapted to further corruption of the prisoners and increase of vice from the want of all power of classification, inspection and employment’.  The grand jury’s committee, after looking at Galway decided upon that at Limerick designed by James Pain in 1821.  However, the Tullamore gaol was to be smaller by about two-fifths.  Like Limerick it had a polygonal tower at the centre but with four rays of buildings diverging from it instead of five.

Lord Tullamore, eldest son of the earl of Charleville, was very much involved in the political manoeuvring that apparently was necessary to obtain support for the building of a gaol and later a court house at Tullamore.  In a letter to his step-brother he gives us an amusing account of the laying of the foundation stone of the gaol: ‘I feel it will give you great pleasure to hear that the first stone is laid, and of my great success.  I shall leave others to describe the scene.  I feel it is impossible to do justice to it, and to you it will appear impossible as you did not witness it.  The lowest calculation makes the multitude amount to 30,000.  Mr Killaly says between 70,000 and 100,000, and is so convinced he is right he is going to measure the ground they covered and make a calculation… Such dense, enormous masses of well-dressed, orderly good-humoured people, such extraordinary enthusiasm; when I addressed them, you might have heard a pin fall, and the enthusiastic shouts of applause were tremendous.  Everything went off beyond my most sanguine expectations; and after the ceremony I was chaired in a crimson and gilt chair, covered with laurels, and in my life anything like the wild hissing and shouting.  I never saw or could have imagined.  The town, every single house, was illuminated, many most tastefully…  A beautiful fire-balloon with my arms etc. was sent up, so constructed as to discharge fireworks and have the appearance of a fiery meteor’.  To be fair to Lord Tullamore, not that he needs anyone to speak for him, he did play a major part in having the gaol and court house built at Tullamore.  In regard to the number attending the ceremony it should be remembered that prior to the Famine the population of the county was about 150,000 or three times the present figure.

The gaol was opened in April 1830, the prisoners having been transferred by canal barge from Daingean.  In the first report of the board of superintendence made to the grand jury in July of that year it was noted: ‘As this was the first attempt at gaol discipline in the King’s County, the prisoners when ordered to work, made violent opposition, some of them
refused to obey and became refractory, but steady and cool remonstrance with a few instances of solitary confinement brought them to a sense of duty’.  The gaol was built to accommodate 120 prisoners but during the Famine years the number ‘accommodated’ rose dramatically and in 1849 the gaol had 321 inmates.  Many had committed petty offences in order to get into gaol to be fed.  Tullamore prison gained considerable notoriety in the 1880s when the leading Plan of Campaign prisoners, William O’Brien, John Manderville and T.D. Sullivan were incarcerated here.  Manderville died soon after his release, allegedly from ill treatment.  On the morning of the inquest the prison doctor, George Ridley, tragically took his own life.  Ridley comes across as a generous individual who had been put under great strain by nationalist opinion on the one side and the prison authorities on the other.  The last public hanging in Ireland took place at this gaol in 1865 when Laurence King was hanged for the murder of Lieutenant Clutterbuck.  The case was tried by the 89-year old Lord Chief Justice Lefroy and was made the basis for a charge of incapacity against the Lord Chief Justice in the house of commons.  Lefroy retired in 1866.  Tullamore gaol was also the scene of the last hanging of a woman in Ireland in 1903.

By the 1900s the number detained in the prison had declined considerably.  However, the prison was again in the news in 1913 when some of the suffragettes were sent to Tullamore.  During the Anglo-Irish war (1919-21) the gaol and the court house were taken over by the British military.  The remaining prisoners were transferred to Mountjoy in November 1921.  During the civil war (1922-3) both the gaol and the court house were taken over by the ‘Irregulars’ or republican forces who sand-bagged the place in anticipation of an attack from the national army.  The republican forces had a change of mind about this and on the morning of 19 July 1922 the gaol, court house and military barrack were set on fire by the departing republicans.  In 1937-8 the site of the gaol was cleared to provide a site for a spinning mill for Salts (Ireland) Ltd., now Tullamore Yarns Ltd.  The factory was the backbone of the town’s economy for over 30 years.  Prior to 1966 the work force was up to 1,000 strong but has now fallen to 250.  The iron work to the front of the gaol and court house dates from 1835.  At the gaol entrance gates may be seen the Roman symbols of authority, the fasces, a bundle of rods from which an axe projected.

Before leaving Cormac Street it should be mentioned that the six houses between Coleman’s Lane and the court house date from the 1830s to the 1850s.  The two houses nearest the court house have good round-headed doorcases with doric fluted columns.  Beside the gaol gates is a terrace of houses for gaol warders of turnkeys and dated to the 1860s to 1880s.  The same looseness surrounds the dating of the terrace of ten two-storey houses opposite the gaol.  These may have been built in 1879.  Only four of the houses still retain their original porches with pierced bargeboarding.  At the end of the terrace is an attractive pair of single-storey houses over basements, in yellow brick.  These ‘cottage’ style houses were erected in 1841.

The Railway Station

We now move to the railway bridge.  The Great Southern and Western Railway Company was responsible for building the railway line through Tullamore.  The first stage from Portarlington to Tullamore terminated at Clonminch in 1854, and a railway station was built there.  By October 1859 the line from Tullamore to Athlone had been constructed and opened.  Two years later, the inhabitants of Tullamore, through the Hon. Alfred Bury, petitioned the railway company to build a station nearer the town because Clonminch was considered to be a great distance from the town centre.  By 1865 a new station had been completed at Charleville Road.  The pedestrian bridge over the railway line was recently taken from Roscrea and re-erected at Tullamore.  Beside the station is the road to the Kilcruttin national schools.  This road is of recent date.  To the right of it is Kilcruttin Lane which terminated at the graveyard.

The demesne of Charleville will be looked at in another publication dealing with the environs of Tullamore.  The Charleville Road houses all date from the 1900s with the exception of Elmfield – the house between the railway line and the road to Spollinstown -which is late 18th century in date, but perhaps with 19th-century additions.

O’MOORE STREET

Moving back down Cormac Street and into O’Moore Street, opposite Acres Hall, we find ourselves once again beside houses built by Thomas Acres on the right or southern side.  This street was formerly known as Earl Street and also Windmill Street.  There were two windmills situated in a field behind the Cormac Street-O’Moore Street houses.  Both windmills seem to have been out of use by 1800 and today only a pile of stones remain.  The terrace of seven two-storey houses with gardens in front, on the southern side near the road to Spollanstown were built by a Tullamore printer, Richard Willis in 1837-8.  Willis took a 100-year lease of the plot of ground for £21 a year and gave similar leases of the houses for £14 each annual rent.

Moore Hall

On the town side of O’Moore Street are two very attractive houses, Moore Hall and The Cottage.  Both these houses are opposite the terrace just mentioned and have gardens in front.  Moore Hall was erected about 1750 and was built for Richard Moore who had a shop in High Street.  The house was considerably improved in the mid-19th century and has an impressive doorcase.  Beside the house is a castellated coach entrance and gothic-style stables in a cobbled yard.  The remains of a gas lamp may be seen on the railings at the front.

The Cottage

The Cottage is thought to have been built in the early 1800s and is a single-storey house over a basement.  It has a very fine pointed doorcase and large three-light windows.

Masonic Lodge

Beside the Cottage is the masonic lodge with the masonnic arms over the door.  The house was used for quaker meetings until 1884 when it was purchased by the Tullamore masonic lodge.  The original glazing bars are still intact.

From this point to the Motor Works has been considerably developed since the 1850s.  Originally there were 16 single-storey houses here, built on the back garden of the Motor Works house by a speculative builder and cabinet maker, Christopher Woods.

CLONMINCH ROAD

Those who like walking are recommended to go to the Clonminch bridge to see the old railway station opened in 1854 and closed about ten years later.  Near the bridge is the Catholic graveyard opened in 1893.  The large celtic cross was erected as a memorial to a parish priest, Fr. Behan, in 1900, and was carved by Messrs. J. & H. Bracken of Templemore.  Beyond the Clonminch bridge and near the water tower is the Church of Ireland graveyard opened in 1852.  Beside the bridge on the left is Chancery Lane, or Lovers Lane, the only country lane near the town.

The houses between the Catholic graveyard and O’Moore Street all date from the 1900s.  The two ‘fine blocks of double villas’ on the eastern side were erected by a former secretary of the Offaly County Council in 1909.  On the western side are eight houses erected by P. & H. Egan Ltd. in 1935.  Looking down towards Bachelors Walk or New Road is a fine red brick house erected in 1910.  Red brick was used in a number of houses in Tullamore in the 1900s.  This house was built for £1,700 but was sold in the 1920s for a £1,000 – a reminder of the very different economic circumstances then prevailing.

BACHELORS WALK

Bachelors Walk, also known as New Road, was laid out about 1815 or the year St Catherine’s church was opened.  The road was part of the earl of Charleville’s scheme for the improvement of the town.  The avenue was planned so as to command a view of Croghan hill, the home of the Charleville family until the 1700s.  It is not clear who was responsible for the design, but it may have been John C. Loudon, the botanist and garden designer, who was employed at Charleville in 1812.  In recent years the road has been under attack from the motor vehicle and the local authority sanitation schemes and is showing signs of the strain.  The houses here were erected from the late 1940s.

St Catherine’s Church

The church, designed by Francis Johnston, was built in the gothic style with a Latin cross plan, side-aisles, a tower at the west, and a crypt at the east end.  The impressive site of Hop hill was chosen by Parson Gouldsbury in 1808.  It is frequently stated that this hill is an artificial mound formed from the material excavated to make Charleville lake.  However, the truth is less fanciful.  Originally more pointed, the hill is a natural one.  The church was erected at a cost of £7,000 and completed in 1815.

The church contains ‘an elaborate memorial now partly broken up’ to Charles Moore, first earl of Charleville of the first creation, who died in 1764.  The monument, by John Van Nost, was commissioned by the first earl’s brother-in-law, John Bury.  Unfortunately, Bury did not live to enjoy the 20,000-acre estate he had inherited and was drowned while bathing at Ringsend, Dublin in the same year.  Dying before the monument was completed he is commemorated on the monument in the form of a bust.  John Wesley saw the monument in the old church and wrote in his journal at 25 June 1767: ‘I was desired to look
at the monument lately erected for the earl of Charleville.  It observes “That he was the last of his family, the great Moores of Croghan”….’

The glebe house near the church was erected in 1814 at a cost of £821.  It was in this house that the astronomer Charles Jasper Joly was born in 1864.

PART TWO

CHURCH STREET

The second stage of the tour begins at Hayes’ hotel on the northern side of the river.  A church was built here in 1726 on a site now occupied by the Foresters hall and McCann’s shop.  It remained in use until the opening of St Catherine’s church in 1815.  The new church can be seen at the foot of Church Street.  The street did not extend any further than the old church until the erection of a factory building by enterprising linen merchants in 1754.  This factory was located opposite the county infirmary at the turn for O’Carroll Street.  The bridge beside the bacon factory was erected in 1795, opening up the street for traffic from Daingean, and later Killeigh and Geashill.  Until that time the street was not much more than a lane and was sometimes referred to as such.

Building leases for the upper half of Church Street date from 1786 and 1790.  The lower half is wider and leases for it date from 1790 on the north side and on the south side from 1805.  Francis Johnston, the architect, was responsible for the design of lower Church Street. Johnston was visiting Tullamore at the time in connection with the building of Charleville castle.  Most likely, he decided on the width of the street and the size and height of the terrace between the methodist church and the county infirmary.  Most of the houses below the Charleville school were built after 1840.

Hayes’ Hotel

Hayes’ hotel, formerly known as the Charleville Arms, was erected by the first earl of Charleville in 1786 at a cost of £200.  It was then leased on a perpetual renewalbasis for £15 a year.  It is probable that the inn was built to promote that case for having Tullamore made the county town, then under review by parliament.  The hotel had 13 beds at this time which was considered by the Grand Company to be inadequate.  As a result an hotel was built by the company at St Brigid’s Place in 1801.  Mr James Hayes acquired the hotel in 1876 and sold it to P. & H. Egan Ltd. in 1905, who later set up the Midland Hotels Co. Ltd.  The garden of the hotel extended as far as the Methodist church.  The buildings here all vary in date from the 1840s to the 1880s.

Methodist Church

This church was opened in 1889 and cost £2,000 to build.  The building is in local limestone with some use made of Portland stone.  The entrance door and most of the woodwork is pitchpine.   There were two earlier Methodist churches on the site dating from 1786, if not earlier.

Terrace

The houses here were erected from 1805 to 1810.  Francis Johnston fixed on eleven building plots but thirteen houses were built.

County Infirmary

This is Tullamore’s oldest public building and was erected in 1788.  The building is of considerable architectural importance because of its function.  There is no doubt that O’Carroll Street was designed so that the county infirmary would close off the vista at the western end.  The infirmary is to be demolished but it is expected that the old facade will be restored should a new building be erected on the site.

The building of a new infirmary at Church Street in 1788 coincided with the redevelopment of the town by the earl of Charleville.  The infirmary was built for £490 but was enlarged in 1812 at a cost of £800.  It was reported in 1801 that the infirmary ‘is humanely attended to by Lady Charleville, and a machine for restoring life to persons apparently drowned, is now erecting at her ladyship’s expense!’  The somewhat notorious judge, Baron Smith, of Newtown near Geashill, very kindly offered to give 114 yards of good linen annually for the patients underwear so long as he approved of the management of the institution.  The infirmary, which catered for up to 50 patients at a time was closed in 1921.  The workhouse hospital served the area until the building of the county hospital in the late 1930s.  The infirmary building accommodated the Civic Guards for a few years followed by the county library which was housed here until 1977.

CHURCH ROAD

Over the river bridge is D.E. Williams Ltd cash and carry.  This was first used as a glass factory in the years 1943 to 1945.  The barrel-vaulted shed beside it operated as the Tullamore laundry, later the Snow White laundry, from 1906 until about 1938.  The creamery and bacon factory were established in 1928 and 1944, respectively, and give employment to about 100.

Charleville School

Moving back into Church Street again, there are no buildings on the southern side of interest other than the Charleville school.  This very attractive building in rough-cut limestone ashlar and with georgian glazing bars, was built in 1811.  Erected by the earl of Charleville for the education of the poor children of the parish, it was operated originally on the plan on Joseph Lancaster.  Lancaster’s system was to have small classes with the elder pupils doing much of the teaching of the younger.  Louisa Tisdall, a daughter of the countess of Charleville by her first marriage, wrote a few interesting details about the school in 1824: ‘The school was built by Papa and is a handsome building.  It was originally arranged by dear Mama on the Lancasterian plan, but in our absenceit was remodelled and is now a mixture of the Bell system and Lancaster’s with other additions.  Introducing the bible among the school books has given great offence to the Catholics, and the whole thing was nearly overturned: there are still however a tolerably good attendance of children in the boys school; the girls we hope to revive soon again – but subscriptions were withdrawn in our absence and as usual it will all fall again on Mama’s purse.  The schoolmaster is clever but appears methodistical… The Irish peasantry have great natural quickness and talent, and a warmth of feeling very congenial to my own.  Were they but educated, civilised, done justice to, would they not be a charming people’.

Patrick Street

Standing at Hayes’ hotel we can get a good view of Patrick Street, formerly Barrack Street.  A barrack was erected here for two companies of foot in 1716.  It was burned in 1922 and U.D.C. housing and a Garda station built on the site.  The military barrack brought about 100 soldiers to the town and is thought to have been a major factor in the town’s growth because of the increased demand for goods and services that followed its arrival.  After the 1870s, soldiers were stationed at Tullamore only at infrequent intervals.

Head Office of Williams Group

Patrick Street was rebuilt after the balloon fire of 1785, and probably widened at this time.  The fire destroyed about 100 houses, mostly thatched, or about one-third of the town’s housing stock.  A few houses survived the fire, including the head office of the Williams Group.  This house was built about 1760 by George Ross, a brewer.  It now serves as the headquarters of a leading Irish company associated with Tullamore since 1884.

Supermarket (now Quinnsworth)

Near the head office of the Williams Group is a D.E. Williams Ltd supermarket.  This building was reconstructed in 1941-2 to a design of Michael Scott, and was finished in Clonaslee stone.  In the Murals Bar beside the supermarket may be seen work by the artist Sean O’Sullivan.

Marrons Shoe Shop (now Domnic Feely)

It is always interesting to trace back a business to its roots.  Marron’s shop on the southern side of the street originated in a tannery established by Michael Mulready in the 1830s.  Mulready occupied the building, now the Oasis cake shop, and had his tannery at the rear.  In the car park at the rear of the Copper Urn public house may be seen his name and the date 1832 inscribed on the warehouse building.  The move from tannery to manufactured shoes purchased elsewhere illustrates the general trend away from the self sufficient country town.  The ease with which goods could be imported from Britain following the building of the railways played a big part in undermining small industries.

Capital Bar

Past the head office of the Williams Group is the Capital Bar.  This three-storey building dates from about 1840.  The date stone of the original building on this site with the inscription ‘Andrew Grier 1742′ may be seen set in the path near the entrance.

Bolger Arms

The Bolger Arms hotel can be dated back to the 1850s but it has been enlarged since that time.

R. Smyth

On the southern side of the street again, the public house of R. Smyth was formerly a mill house with stores, a flour mill and kiln at the rear.  The mill was incorporated in the Tullamore distillery in the 1830s.

K. Dunne, Walsh

Before leaving Patrick Street the very fine shopfronts of K. Dunne and Walsh are worth noting.  Patrick Street is now the major shopping area of the town and is likely to lose such residential character as it still retains.

Mallet Tavern

The most interesting house in Kilbride Street is undoubtedly the Mallet Tavern, the only surviving thatched house in the town.  This house may predate the fire of 1785.  It has been in the Molloy family for many generations.  Many of those who frequented it in the last century were masons working at the limestone quarries at Ballyduff and Sragh.

We can return to Columcille Street (William Street) through Kilbride Park.  On the left, across the canal are the Clontarf Road houses thatched cabins. The very fine bonded warehouse beside the canal was erected by Daniel E. Williams in 1897.  The company had its own canal barge which continued to ply between Tullamore and Dublin until 1957.

Irish Mist Liquer Co. Ltd.

East of the bonded warehouse are the attractive offices of the Irish Mist Liquer Co. Ltd, erected in 1966-7.  The whiskey-based liquer has been manufactured here since the late ‘forties and is now exported to over 100 countries.  Visitors are welcome at the company’s office after 3 p.m. each day.

OFFALY STREET

Beside the Irish Mist buildings is Offaly Street, formerly known as Wheelwright Lane.  The street was developed by Thomas Acres who purchased portion of the back garden of the Columcille Street houses he already had.  However, the street was in a backward, sunless area and failed to attract very much besides cabins, many of which have since been demolished.  The large two-storey houses at H. Collins Ltd. represent the beginning of an ambitious plan that failed to take off.  Proceeding through Offaly Street we emerge at Byrne’s public house and make our way towards Hayes’ hotel.

COLUMCILLE STREET

Better known as William Street (after Charles William Bury, first earl of Charleville) but prior to the 1800s known as Pound Street.  The pound was in the area of the derelict houses at the Kilbeggan bridge.  There was little development here before 1790. In that year a plan of the street with building plots was made by the architect, John Pentland.  Where we now have the opening to Harbour Street was reserved in 1790 for a court house.  However, another 40 years was to pass before a site would be required.  Thomas Acre took leases of almost all of this street from the landlord and building began about 1795.

Gleesons

This was a massive drapery store by provincial standards and was erected by Malachy Scally in 1911-14.  Scally is said to have taken the design from a shop in Brussels, but T.F. McNamera supervised the work here.  The original, more decorative window frames, were recently removed.  It is said locally that Scally’s business declined as a result of the building of this grand store because country people were afraid to go into it!

Allied Irish Banks

The Allied Irish Banks branch is by J. Boyd-Barrett and was erected in 1949-50.

Dolan’s Pharmacy

Beside the bank is the very nice shop front of Dolan’s pharmacy with six engaged doric fluted columns.  An interesting fact about this shop is that successive chemists or apothecaries have carried on business here since 1796, which must be a record in the town in regard to continuity of function.  There is not a great deal else in Columcille Street that is of particular interest therefore let us turn right into Harbour Street.

HARBOUR STREET

Like Church Street, Patrick Street and Convent Road, this street is at a right angle to the main street in accordance with the first earl’s grid iron style town plan.  The harbour at the
eastern end was completed in 1799.  There is no evidence of residential development here prior to that date.  The landlord made building plots available on the northern side of the street (from the Co-op to Cunninghams) in 1805 and building began immediately.  The development was an orderly one with uniformity in regard to frontage and elevation.  The southern side from Finlay’s shop to the maltings is not so well planned and is a development of the 1820s.  Progress on this side was restricted because the back garden of what is now Finlay’s shop extended to the E.S.B. office.  The lease dated from 1790 and indicates that the landlord had not envisaged the development of Harbour Street some years later.

MARKET SQUARE

Access to Tullamore’s second market square, an unusual town feature, can be gained from Deane Place, opposite the Church gates in Harbour Street.  The leaseholders on the northern side of Harbour Street and the southern side of Church Street had to go without
the benefit of long gardens so that the landlord could provide a new market place.  This square was formerly known as the Cornmarket and was laid out about 1823.

Grand Central

Of interest here is the Grand Central cinema.  The cinema is on part of the site of the old meat market which in turn was erected on the site of the town’s first Protestant church.  Mr T.F. McNamera provided plans for the erection of a cinema and alterations to the Tullamore Co-operative Society building erected in 1921 and incorporated in the Foresters’ development.  The work was carried out by Duffy Brothers and the cinema opened in 1924.

Egan-Tarleton Ltd

At the eastern end of the square is the Egan-Tarleton property which contains grain handling plant etc.  This place was built in 1822 as a distillery and continued as such until the 1840s.  It was then used as a temporary workhouse and later as a steam saw mills and a maltings.

GAS WORKS LANE

We now leave the Market Square and return to Harbour Street through Gas Works Lane.  Tullamore obtained piped gas in 1880 and this continued to be used until electricity became generally available in 1921.  At the foot of Harbour Street is St. Philomena’s girls primary school erected in 1932.  The school was built on the site of the old Foresters hall burned in 1920 by the Black and Tans.

O’CARROLL STREET

Opposite St Philomena’s is the new Vocational School opened in the early 1970s and north of it the Sacred Heart secondary school for girls opened in the 1950s.  O’Carroll Street also known as Henry Street (probably after Henry Manley) dates from 1810.  The terrace of 12 two-storey houses on the eastern side was built in the late 1830s.  O’Carroll Street was the site of a house built by John Moore in the 1700s.  John Moore became the first Lord Tullamore in 1715.  His son Charles, moved to Redwood, a house near Charleville castle in 1740 and the Tullamore house fell into ruin.  It is thought to have been located near the Charleville school.

CHAPEL STREET

In an attempt to keep the narrative in some kind of chronological order we move back to Chapel Street.  Chapel Street did not share the same fate as Offaly Street probably because of the Catholic church on the eastern side.  Like Offaly Street most of it was on the Acres estate.  One or two good houses were erected here on the western side and also on the eastern side nearest Harbour Street but the development failed to take off.  The rest of the houses were cabins let on short leases. There has been a lot of rebuilding here since the 1900s.  In this street is the town’s last farmyard.  This contrasts remarkably with the position in 1900 when a lot of people in the town kept cows and pigs etc. on the back gardens of their dwellings.  The cock crowing in the early morning can still be heard in the town but is becoming very rare.

The church of the Assumption of our Blessed Lady

This church was completed in October 1906 and is on the site of a church built about 1800.  The first post-Reformation Catholic church in the Tullamore area was erected in 1775 at Ballyduff (near the Burlington factory).  This was a small T-shaped building some of the walls of which are still standing.  In 1794 the proprietor of Tullamore presented the present site to the parish priest and a church was erected here before 1802.  By all accounts it was a fine building, to which additions were made in 1808 and again before 1850.  In 1808 the parish priest, Fr Kearney, petitioned the directors of the Grand Canal Company for a contribution towards the building of an addition to the chapel because ‘the enlargement of the chapel has in part become necessary from the great number of people that resort it, in proceeding to your passage boats, more particularly from the province of Connaught, and also the large portion of the labouring poor employed on your works, whose morals, if not attended to, might become so depraved as to endanger the security of your extensive works, which tho’ executed with great judgement, are still vulnerable in many parts’.  Fr Kearney’s services as moral policeman were accepted and he received £50 from the canal company for the church building fund.

The church was getting into a bad state of repair by the end of the century and the then parish  priest, Fr Behan, decided to build a new one.  The foundation stone was laid by Dr Nulty, bishop of Meath, on 5 June 1898.  Mr William Hague was commissioned as architect, and it was expected that the building would cost £15,000.  In the event it cost over £25,000.  The architect died while the work was in progress and the new church was completed by T.F. McNamera.  A description of the church in The Irish Builder (20 Oct. 1906) is worth reproducing.

A large and important church was dedicated on Sunday week by the Most Revd. Dr. Gaughran, Bishop of Meath, at Tullamore.  The church, which has but recently been completed, was designed by the late Mr William Hague, and built under the supervision of Mr. T.F. McNamera, of Dublin.  The building, which is Gothic, is about 200 feet from the ground, 172 feet in the length from outside east wall to the west door, the nave 36 feet wide, side aisles 18 feet wide each.  The sanctuary has on each side two chapels, behind one of which is the sacristy, and near the other a well-lighted room reserved for the nuns who have easy access to their convent.  The chancel arch rests on two columns and smaller pillars of Galway granite.  Over the alters the groined roof is of fibrous plaster, while that of the centre is of pitch pine.  The windows contain cathedral glass, and perfection appears to have been reached in the ventilation, heating, and lighting, the last being by means of electric installation.  At the west end is the organ, an instrument the look of which is in harmony with the whole edifice, and was supplied by Telford, of Dublin.  The High Alter is a magnificent proof of the sculptor’s art.  It is of Sicilian marble with panels of Carara and shafts of Cork and Connemara marble, the artists being Messrs. Malone, also of Dublin.  There are already also stained glass windows and the Stations, in oils.  The stone materials were taken from the local quarries, and, as far as possible, local tradesmen and labourers were employed throughout.  For the dedication, the new R.C. Bishop of Meath, Dr. Gaughran, attended, and he was assisted by Dr. Hoare, of Ardagh.

In 1930 the walls of the sanctuary were decorated in mosaics at a cost of over £2,500, by Messrs Oppenheimer of Manchester.  The church and grounds were renovated in 1977 at a cost of £35,000.

STORE STREET

Moving through the church grounds to the eastern end of the church we emerge at Store Street.  The making of this street was a direct result of the completion of the Grand Canal as far as Tullamore in 1798.  Over the high wall opposite the church is the canal harbour. Stores were built on the harbour side of this street about 1800.  The plot of ground between the canal at Convent Road and Harbour Street was conveyed to the canal company by Lord Charleville for the provision of a harbour, stores and a hotel.  Building on the western side began in 1805-6.  One Laurence Behan, erected six three-storey houses the first of which is at Cunningham’s car show rooms and the last at the house north of the Store Street church entrance.  When Behan was declared bankrupt in 1810 the six houses were sold for £1,000.  The next two houses are identical in style and were built by William Frazer in 1807.

BENBURB STREET

Between Chapel Street and Store Street is Benburb Street, perhaps better known by its former name Thomas Street (probably after Thomas Manley).  Most of the houses here date from the 1830s replacing cabins erected in the 1800s.  St Mary’s hall, originally a single-storey building was opened about 1861 for the C.Y.M.S.

ST BRIGID’S PLACE

Following the road east of Benburb Street we move into St Brigid’s Place.  The nice georgian house on the corner with two storeys over a basement, was built in 1800 to accommodate the boat fare collector.  Beside this house  is a community centre, formerly St Brigid’s national school.  The school house was built by the Christian Brothers about 1875.  Next, is the new parochial house built for the Catholic clergy of the parish and completed in 1974.  This building is on the site of the old Grand canal hotel.

The canal hotel

The hotel was erected in 1801 and demolished in 1974.  The building, with three storeys over a basement and seven bays, was identical to that at Roberstown which still survives.  Tullamore was the terminus of the Grand canal for six years until the extension to Shannon Harbour was completed in 1804.  It was an enormous benefit to the town because it provided a direct link with Dublin and made it possible to transport goods at low costs.  A canal engineer, Captain Evans, had recommended in 1798 that a hotel be built in the town because of the inadequate accommodation available.  A hotel was needed  for passengers, who, having left Dublin at 6 a.m. would not arrive in Tullamore until 8 p.m.  The canal company built five hotels in all, but they were not a financial success.  The competition from coaches and the desire of passengers to travel to their destinations as quickly as possible made the hotels unnecessary.  On completion of the Tullamore hotel in 1801 the company leased it for three years at £114 annual rent.  This was not allowing very much for return on capital as it had cost £4,399.  The lease was renewed in 1804, but by 1807 business had declined because of a change in boat timetables.  At this point the company decided to employ their own hotel keeper at two guineas a week, but he was later dismissed because of ‘the misconduct of his wife’.  In 1838 it was reported that the hotel ‘is
generally empty’.  The building was used as a temporary hospital in the years 1845 to 1851.  In 1859 the building opened as St. Brigid’s seminary, and from 1862 it was shared between the Christian Brothers.  When the seminary closed in 1866 that part of the house came to be occupied by the Catholic curates.  The parish priest took up residence with his
curates in 1893 on the departure of the Christian Brothers.  The building was demolished in late 1974.

Across from the new parochial house is Bury bridge built in 1799. The bridge and the area of the east of it are also known as Whitehall.

CONVENT ROAD

North of Bury Bridge, across the canal, is the old road to Mullingar.  Before the canal was constructed this area was known as Connaught Street and had a number of cabins.  After the building of the canal the principal’cabin suburbs’ were north of the canal at Clontarf Road and Rapparee Alley (the above mentioned old road to Mullingar).  Convent Road, also known as Bury Quay, was laid out for building plots in 1805.  The area between Store Street and Bury bridge was already owned by the canal company and stores (still standing) were erected here in the 1800s.  On the corner is St Columba’s classical school built in 1912.  Part of this is still used as a school and the rest as a recreation centre.  Like many other buildings in the town it was designed by T. F. McNamera.

Convent of Mercy and schools

Although it fronts Benburb Street and Store Street I have left the convent of Mercy and schools until now so that the visitor could be referred to the inscriptions on the building at Convent Road.  These buildings were erected between 1961 and 1967 and replaced structures of varying dates including a convent in the gothic style completed in 1841.  The Mercy nuns arrived in Tullamore in 1836 having come by canal from Dublin.  The first convent was situated near the principle entrance to the present convent in Store Street and was a dwelling house similar to the houses still standing in that street.  That the nuns came to Tullamore was largely as a result of the efforts of the town’s best known and most influential parish priest, Fr James O’Rafferty.  Funds to found a convent at Tullamore were provided from the estate of a Miss Penthony, a wealthy Dublin lady who retired to Tullamore to work among the poor.  She died in 1835.

Terrace

From the school to the Kilbeggan bridge are seven houses similar to those in Cormac Street.  These houses were erected about 1807.  Plots of ground for the two houses west of the entrance to Chapel Street were leased to John Coffey.  The houses are identical and have retained their original features including the glazing bars.  The public house on the corner, built in two stages, exhibits the landlord’s concern for how the town looked.  The portion of it fronting Columcille Street was erected in 1791-2, and that part fronting Convent Road about 1805 to 1807.  There is a date stone set in the wall fronting Columcille Street.  The lease, Charles Berry, undertook to build a house uniform with other houses to be erected in Convent Road, rather than with his own in Columcille Street.  Incidentally, Berry received £125 compensation from the canal company for damage done to this house.  The building of the canal bridge had placed the middle floor of his house on a level with the height of the street.

ARDEN ROAD

The Kilbeggan bridge, the last point in our walking tour, was erected in 1801-03.  The bridge was reconstructed in 1929-30 by Duffy Brothers.  Apparently there had been a good deal of opposition when the canal bridges were constructed, possibly because of the difficulties it created for horses trying to pull a load across it. In December 1802 Lord Charleville ‘promised to use his best endeavours to put an end to the opposition heretofore existing to the proposed situation and number of bridges to be built at Tullamore’.  Apart from the building of a workhouse in 1841 very little development took place on the Arden Road until the present century.  Most of the workhouse was demolished in recent years.  Further out the Arden Road is the county hospital, erected in the late 1930s to a design of Scott and Good.  The building was fronted in local limestone in order to encourage employment.  Other interesting examples of modern architecture on this road are the Day Care Centre and Welfare Home on the site of the workhouse and the Health Centre on the hospital lawn.

The canal is now Tullamore’s most valued amenity.  From the Kilbeggan bridge a good view can be obtained of the improvements carried out here since the 1960s by the U.D.C. in co-operation with Lakeland Tourism and Irish Mist.  It is hoped that these improvements will continue and that the town itself will be planted with trees in years to come.

An Foras Forbartha,

William Garner,

Tullamore Architectural Heritage (Dublin, 1980)

INTRODUCTION

The name Tullamore derives from the Irish Tulach Mhor meaning “big mound”, whish was probably the hill where St. Catherine’s church now stands.  In ancient times the area belonged to the Molloy family who sold their property, which included the Village of Tullamore, to the Moores of Croghan in                                       

Tullamore remained a town of small significance until the Moore family started to develop it at the beginning of the eighteenth century.  At that time the main axis of the town appears to have been east-west with houses running from Church Street along Patrick Street, to the site of the present Garda Station, with south-wards spur though Bridge Street to High Street.  Several of the houses in High Street date back to this period including the round House and house occupied by Mercantile Credit.  However, in 1764 the direct line of Moores died out leaving the estate to their cousins, the Burys of Shannongrove, Co. Limerick. Charles William Bury, who inherited the estate, was a minor and was therefore unable to grant leases.  Without leases building work was restricted and the town’s expansion severely curtailed.  His coming of age in 1785 coincided with the great fire of Tullamore and the two events heralded a new era in the town’s development.

In the spring of 1785 an ascending hot-air balloon became entangled in a chimney of a distillery and landed on a thatched cottage causing a disastrous fire which destroyed the whole of Patrick Street with the exception of a few houses.  This fire cleared the way for the rebuilding of Patrick Street which might account for the greater width of the street in comparison with Church Street, its extension to the east.  Further building in this part of town took place in 1790 with the laying out of William Street, now Columcille Street, by the architect John Pentland, and also along High Street and in O’Conner Square where many of the more substantial houses date from this period.

Sir Charles Coote writing in the Statistical Survey of the King’s County (1801) exaggerates somewhat the changes brought about in the previous twenty years:

About fourteen years ago Tullamore was but a very mean village, with scarce any better houses than thatched cabins, which were almost all destroyed by accidental fire, occasioned by the launching of the balloon, and has since risen, Phoenix-like, from its ashes, to its present pre-eminence.  It is certainly the best town in the county, and bids fair to be little inferior to any town in Ireland.

Though less poetic The Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland (1846) may be more accurate:

The improvement of the town previous to 1800 was probably more rapid than that of any other town in Ireland, and seems to have been occasioned partly by the reaction which followed its calamity, but chiefly by the judicious, liberal, and stimulating encouragement of Lord Charleville.

With the arrival of the Grand Canal in 1789 and its extension to the Shannon in the first decade of the nineteenth century Tullamore saw an increase in trade and subsequent expansion in Church Street, Charles Street (now Harbour Street) and O’Carroll Street area. Charles Bury, created Earl of Charleville of the second creation in 1806, employed Francis Johnston to design his new house, Charleville Castle, and retained him to design the new Church of Ireland church at the east end of the town.  The previous church had been in Church Street, and it was in this street that Johnston also laid out sites for new houses.  At the east end of Church Street is O Carroll Street, a majestic open space terminated by the former county Infirmary which was built in 1788. As a space it owes much of its effective proportions to the mass of the Infirmary at the south end.

Although Tullamore had been the most important town in County Offaly for many years it did not become the county town until 1833. The influence of the Ponsonby family had kept this function in Philipstown (Daingean) despite fifty years of claims by Tullamore.  By 1841 Tullamore had a population of 6,454 and among its industries were distilling, brewery, milling and Tanning. Distilling in particular, in the form of Daly’s Distilling, prospered in the latter half of the nineteenth century and contributed to the development of the town into the early twentieth century.

Two particularly interesting building which date from the early twentieth century are the ‘Bridge House’ and ‘Gleeson’s, formerly ‘Scally’s’. Attractive local authority houses and the massive French-gothic Catholic Church by William Hague were also built in this period. Tullamore has two important examples of the mid-twentieth-century architecture by Scott and Good and Michael Scott. These are the County Hospital, and the shops and offices of D.E. Williams in Patrick Street.

The presence of the famous Tullamore limestone quarries in the vicinity of the town has guaranteed a plentiful supply of excellent buildings stone over the last two centuries. Examples of the skill of local stone masons are visible in many of the building in the town, notable the Court House, the Market House, the Catholic Church and the massive stone warehouses. This supply of stone and the presence of skilled stone mason must have influenced the choice of rusticated limestone for the County Hospital at a time when cut stone was no longer in common use for building. Also of note is the use of Rosenallis sandstone on the facade of D.E. Williams shop and offices.

Tullamore is remarkable for the number of excellent eighteenth-and nineteenth-century door cases.  The round-headed, blocked-architrave variety, which through its massiveness sometimes attains the standing of a Gibbsian doorcase, is particularly impressive. The delicate architraved examples are only found in south Westmeath, Offaly and north Laois and have a considerable rarity value. Mention should be made of the large number of houses fronted by railings, an indication, perhaps, of the prosperity of the town in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Much of the character of the town has changed little in the last hundred years and the description found in The Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland (1846) is still very relevant:

The streets are regular, wide, and well-aligned; many of the shops and the private dwellings displays a neatness, an amplitude, and a pretension, which would do credit to a place of much greater population and importance; and the general appearance of the town…is cleanly, modern, and respectable.

The Catholic Church of the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady

 

The Church is a large French-gothic building designed by William Hague and completed by T F McNamera. It was erected between 1898 and 1906 replacing an earlier church of circa 1800.  The church is sited in the centre of the block between Harbour Street and Benburb Street and is built of rusticated limestone with a long nave and aisles. The west end has a large and complex rose window over an elaborately carved doorcase which is flanked by octagonal turrets and flying buttresses. On the north –east corner is a tall tower and spire with buttresses, gargoyles and clock faces on each side. The interior is relatively plain in comparison with the exterior. The nave is flanked by arcades of polished red granite and there is a simple clerestory. The main point of interest is the hammer-beam roof supported by thin clasping columns which are set between the windows of the clerestory. There are no transepts and the nave ends with a chancel arch of clustered columns. The sanctuary, which is flanked by side chapels, has a polygonal apse with gilded rib-vaulting, dark red ceilings and walls covered with mosaic. The main alter, backed by a tall, imposing and delicately carved reredos, and is still in situ.

        Beside the west end of the church is a small shrine composed of primitively carved, fluted, Doric columns and fragments of cut stone.  The entrance gates to the church, in Harbour Street, have octagonal piers and appear to be earlier than the present church.  They are set in line with a similar pair of gates, on the north side of Church Street, which now leads into a builder’s yard.

St Catherine’s Church of Ireland church

St. Catherine's Church, Hophill

 

 St Catherine’s is set on Hop Hill, a mound about half a mile east of the town.  It was designed by Francis Johnson in 1808 and finished in 1818 at a cost of over £8,000.  It is a very large cruciform plan church of rough cut ashler, with battered walls and a very heavy base batter at the east end where there is a crypt.  It has a five-bay nave, aisles, transepts, a rectangular sanctuary, and three-stage tower at the west end.  The walls are crowned by simple crenellations; the tower and aisles have diagonally-set buttresses.  The pointed windows in the aisles and clerestory have limestone, church-warden tracery.  The doorcases are pointed and chamfered; the west door has exceptionally fine blank tracery.

        The interior is spacious and contains the memorial (1764) to the first Charleville by John Van Nost the younger.  It was moved from the earlier Church of Ireland church in Church Street which may explain its present broken up state.  The monument shows the recumbent effigy of lord Charleville flanked by figures of Justice and Religion.  The figures are of white marble set against a pyramid of black marble: for a fuller description see Irish Church Monuments by Homan Potteron.4

        The church, as an attempt to build a gothic church with spaces i.e. nave, transepts and sanctuary, similar to those found in mediaeval churches, marks an important point in the movement away from the ‘preaching box’ of the eighteenth century. It is, however, a rather dull church and lacking in ornament.

L     The Gable House dates from the same period and is a simple five-bay, two-story house with rough-cast walls and a hipped roof.  The windows have retained their Georgian glazing-bars, but a porch has been added obscuring the doorcase.  Lewis states that it was built in 1815.

        The Methodist Church

Methodist Church

 

The Methodist church, in Church Street, was designed by G F Beckett in 1889.  It is a tall building with a facade of rusticated limestone in which there is a triple lancet window over a simple pointed doorcase which is flanked by paired pointed windows.  The facade is fronted by simple railings.

 

 

The Presbyterian Church

The Presbyterian Church, at the junction of Cormac Street and High Street, dates from 1865 through its unaffected classicism suggest an earlier date.  It has a short nave and a severe pedimented ashler facade with a heavy cornice and Doric pilasters.  Projecting from the facade is a small enclosed porch of identical design containing a plain round-headed chamfered doorcase. On the south side is a vestry with a similar pedimented porch. The church is set back from the street and is fronted by cast-iron railings.

  

The Court House

Tullamore Courthouse

 

The Court House, designed by John B Keane and built between 1833 and 1835, is similar to Keane’s Court House in Waterford which was built in 1849. Tullamore Court House was burnt in 1922 and rebuilt in 1925. It is set back from the road behind a battered wall, topped by heavy railings, and a row of mature trees.  The main feature of the buildings is a splendid portico of fluted ionic columns with a parapet and acroterion over the pediment.  Under the portico are five round-headed arches, the centre three with doorcases.  The doorcases have no windows over them, but there are windows over the outer arches. Flanking the portico are blank walls, channelled on the ground floor and sunken panels on the first floor.  The walls of the wings facing the road have fine pedimented windows on the ground floor and architrave windows on the first.  Since there are so few windows on the facade the building looks forbiddingly impressive. The returns of facades, of seven bays and two storeys’, have more incidents. The centre three bays are slightly recessed, with cornices over the ground floor windows, then single bays, Doric pilasters and further single bays flanked by pilasters which terminate the facade. The whole building is unified by a full entablature.

       

The Gaol, now Tullamore Yarns Ltd

Tullamore Gaolhouse

 

The building of the Gaol is recorded on a plague over the entrance: ‘The first stone of this prison was laid by Charles William Baron Tullamore on the 13^th day of September in the year of our Lord 1826 and in the 7^th year of the reign of his Most Gracious Majesty George the fourth. Commissioners Lord Baron Tullamore M P, Colonel Thomas Bernard M P, William Trench, John Head Drought, Valentine Bennett and Francis berry Esquires. Engineer John Killay Esq., Contractors Henry, Mullins and MacMahon. John Rafter sculp’.

        The gaol was laid out on the radiating principle and had a huge castellated central tower. When the gaol was demolished in the 1930 only the front wall and gate-house were retained. The gate house has two crenellated towers flanking a lower, machicolated centre. Running away on either wide of the gate-house are high walls. Although the architect of the gaol is unknown, it follows the layout of the Limerick Gaol which is by James Pain. On the road is a battered wall topped by heavy railings similar to those in front of the Court House. The entrance gates have cast-iron piers in the form of Roman fasces.8

L     To one side of the entrance is a row of two story houses built of rough-cut limestone ashlar with brick dressings, enclosed porches, eaves and dormer windows with pierced barge-boards.  This attractive row dates from the mid-nineteenth century

Bridge Street

Bridge Street

        Bridge Street is a short street linking the wider spaces of O’Connor Square and Columcille Street. The presence of the Tullamore River is minimised because the buildings on both sides of the street flank the bridge tightly.

R     Bridge House, an unusually flamboyant building for a provincial Irish town, is designed in a faintly Jacobean style which is rare in Ireland. It was built in 1910 for P and H Egan Ltd. who owned the maltings at the east end of Harbour Street.  The facade of Bridge House, four bays and three storeys is built of red brick with elaborate limestone dressings.  The ground floor has four, wide, pointed arches placed on short, bulbous, Doric columns set on pedestals, and windows brass frames. The first floor has very wide windows in the centre flanked by wide Doric pilasters. The second floor windows are smaller, paired in the centre but flanked by wide Doric pilasters.  The curvilinear parapet is topped by moulded coping with obelisks over the pilasters. In the centre is a decorative bracket, a curvilinear gable and the dates 1852-1910 channelled into the limestone. The building has stylistic similarities with ‘Gleeson’s’ in Columcille Street and, therefore, may be by T F McNamera.

L     To the south, beyond Distillery Lane, is a large six-bay, three-storey house with rendered walls and nineteenth-century glazing-bars in the windows. It has a mid-eighteenth-century cornice on the facade and wrought-iron railings with urns along the front. The interior has handsome mid-eighteenth-century cornice with dentils and egg and dart moulding in the ground-floor rooms.

        East side:

R     The Bank of Ireland, formerly the Hibernian Bank, has a facade of five bays and three storeys, plus an extension of four bays and two storeys, on the Bridge Street Side. On the O’Connor Square side the facade has three bays with a pair of round-headed windows on the ground floor. It is built of Portland stone, channelled on the ground floor and ashlar above with chamfered raised coigns and a heavy limestone cornice. It was designed by W H Byrne in 1908.

L     Hayes Hotel, at the northern end of the street, has good massing and colour. It was built as an inn by the Burys in 1786

        O’Connor Square

 

        Although the houses in the square are irregular in size it has a unity which is largely achieved by a uniformity of scale and common building materials.

L     In the centre of the square is a First World War memorial: an obelisk with a wreath and sword on one face. It is signed E W Doyle Jones A E B S.

        South side from the west end:

R     On the corner is a large three-story house, built in 1787, with five bays to the square and three to the High Street. The walls are rendered and the house has pleasantly proportioned windows. On the ground floor are two simple shopfronts: ‘Tony Corcoran and ‘J Ginnelly’.

R     The next house, built at the same time, is of similar height and also of five bays. It has a round-headed architraved doorcase, but has lost the original glazing-bars in the windows.

R     Jutting out into the square is an L-plan house of five bays and three storeys. It is lower than the previous houses and has small windows, rendered walls, a hipped roof and a plain square-headed doorcase. This house, dating from 1743, is thought to be the earliest house in the square.

R     The Post Office, probably by J Howard Pentland, is dated 1909. Nevertheless, it is in keeping with eighteenth-century houses of the square as it has a roof of similar pitch and Georgian-style glazing-bars in similarly proportioned windows. The facade is of four bays and three storeys, rough-cast, with strip pilasters between each bay and an exceptionally wide eaves-cornice with mutules.

        The most striking features is the limestone door-case which has shouldered architraves, a canopy supported by brackets and a bronze fanlight incorporating the date 1909 in Roman numerals.

R     Beside the Post Office is a very handsome, mid-eighteenth-century, four bay, three storey with rough cast walls, Georgian glazing-bars in the windows, a substantial limestone cornice and frieze a sprocketed roof and a round-headed Gibbsian door-case with timber fanlight. Fronting the house is a low wall with railings. The house dates from 1752. 30

R     On the corner is a splendid, six-bay, three-story house with rough cast walls, a simple cornice and graduated slates on the roof. It has a fine round-headed blocked-architrave doorcase with a scroll keystone and a leaded fanlight.  The door itself is of high quality with eighteenth-century moulding on the panels and an attractive brass door-knocker which has a shell and a hand on it. On one side of the facade is a carriage arch with cobbled entrance. In front of the house are cast-iron railings with urns set on a low wall. On the corner of the wall beside Tanyard Lane is an octagonal spur-stone. This house gives the impression of being later than the previous house and is said to date from 1786.

        At the east end of the square is the library and civic offices, formerly the vocational school, which was built in 1937.

L     On the north side, east of Bridge Lane, is a plain four-bay, two-storey house with a high-pitched roof with an outline typical of the mid-eighteenth century. The walls are lined and rendered, painted, and topped by a simple cornice. The windows are small and there is a rudimentary round-headed, blocked-architrave doorcase.

L     On the west side of the Bridge Lane is a plain, rendered, three-bay, three-storey house with a cornice.

R     The next building is a large, five-bay, three-storey house, taller than the previous building but equally plain. It has lined and rendered walls, windows which are small in proportion to the area of the facade, a cornice and a blocking course. The round-headed doorcase has a simple architrave which could date from the last decade of the eighteenth century.

N     In the centre of the north side is the Market House which was built in the late 1780s by the first Earl of Charleville of the second creation. The architect may have been John Pentland who was working in the town at this period. The facade is of seven bays and two storeys with a three-bay, pedimented break-front, of limestone ashler on the ground floor and rough cut ashlar on the first floor. The arcaded ground floor, which was once open, has a square- headed architraved doorcase set into the central arch. Over the ground floor is a plat-band and wide windows which have Georgian glazing –bars. There is a simple limestone cornice while the tympanum of the pediment contains the Charleville monogram under a coronet. The hipped roof still retains its graduated slates and is crowned by a very attractive octagonal timber lantern with a lead dome which is probably original.9

R     Between the Market House and the Bank of Ireland is a remarkably colourful warehouse of circa 1870. It has a facade of five bays and three storeys with windows which are square-headed on the ground floor, canted on the first floor and pointed on the second floor. On the east side of the gable with pierced barge-boards, the hoist (still in place) and large openings on each floor. The banding and limestone crosses the building (windows included) at the eaves level of the Market House. This individual gothic house has been cleaned recently, and adapted for use by the bank Ireland.10

        Tanyard Lane

L     Tanyard Lane is a narrow street leading off the south-east corner of O’Connor Square. It is flanked by a high wall and bordered by several substantial stone warehouses. Of particular note are large warehouses and malting occupied by ‘J A Lumley’ which are built of coursed-rubble limestone with yellow-brick window-dressing.

        High Street

        Most of the houses in the street date from the mid-eighteenth century and several may be earlier. Both the northern and southern ends of High Street face important open spaces: the northern end forms the west side of O’Connor Square and the southern end broadens out to form a triangular open space at the junction of O’Moore Street and Cormac Street. The latter is a particularly attractive urban space where the three approaches are dominated by excellent buildings: O’Moore Street by Acres Hall, Cormac Street by the last house on the east side of High Street and High street the first house on the east side of Cormac Street.

        West side from the north end

R     ‘G N Walshe’ is on a large, L-plan house of five bays and three storeys with two bays jutting out onto the street. The walls are rendered, lined and painted and there is a string course on the lintel level of the first floor. A heavy cornice helps to date the house to the mid-eighteenth century. On the end, projecting from the gable is a rectangular-plan brick stack which also suggests a mid-eighteenth-century date.

L     The next building is a three-storey, three bay houses with small windows which are set close to the centre in rural Irish manner, rendered and painted walls and a simple cornice

L     Next is a five-bay, three-storey house with a rendered and painted facade and windows with shallow reveals, nineteenth-century glazing-bars and a simple cornice

L     ‘Walshe’ is on a substantial four-bay, three-storey house which probably dates from the late eighteenth century.

R     Beside ‘Walshe’ is a low, three-bay, three-storey house with a rough-cast facade. The elliptical headed doorcase is unusual in living fluted Doric columns which do not support any form of entablature. It has a leaded cobweb fanlight set in a scooped-out surround decorated with fluting, and a very good panelled door. The doorcase probably dates from circa 1820, although the squat appearance of the house suggests a mid-to late-eighteenth-century date.32

L     ‘T Colgan’, ‘P Cleary’ and ‘Quirke’s Medical Hall’ are on plain two-storey houses with simple cornices; they probably date from the late eighteenth century.

 R    ‘P Ginn’ is on a similarly proportioned three-bay, two- story house which also has a simple cornice. The windows have shallow reveals; the round-headed doorcase has a crisply carved architrave and fluted keystone of circa 1790. ‘McGinn’ has two attractive, grained shopfronts with excellent gilded lettering on the fascia-board, highlighted by dark paintwork.16

R     ‘T Tutty’ is on a plain, late-eighteenth-century, four-bay, two-story house with a round-headed architraved doorcase and a scroll keystone. The shop front of circa 1870 has good console brackets and painted lettering. Protecting the display window are projecting iron bars and underneath is an enamelled advertisement.15

R     The former Bank of Ireland was designed in the Italianate style by Sandham Symes in 1870. It has a robust limestone facade of five bays and two storeys and is slightly set back from the street. The ground floor is channelled and has segmental-headed windows and a doorcase inset in an arch with a scroll keystone. Over the ground floor is a heavy cornice and a string –course on the first-floor sill-level. The first-floor windows have architraves and cornices supported by console brackets and the facade is topped by a frieze, cornice and blocking course. Fronting the building are heavy cast-iron railings.11

L     The ‘County Arms’ is a long, eight-bay, three-storey house with windows grouped in fours. The rough-cast walls are battered, the windows are small with wide frames, and the facade is topped by a simple cornice.

L     To the south of Tara Street there are two, plain, three-storey houses, one of which has two, simple, late-nineteenth-century shop fronts, with console brackets. At the area rere of ‘Finnegan’s house is an early-eighteenth-century, brick, pie-crust cornice.

L     Next is a two-storey, two-bay house with a simple cornice and a round-headed architraved doorcase with a scroll keystone. The single ground-floor window is protected by bars.

N     ‘The Round House’ and flanking houses were built together and many possibly date from as early as 1720. Originally there was a five-bay house in the centre flanked by two, three-bay houses. However, two bays from the central house are now added to the three-bay house at the north end. This end house is now of five bays and has a cemented facade and nineteenth-century glazing –bars. Nevertheless it still retains the heavy cornice and a round headed architraved doorcase which probably dates from the late eighteenth century. In front is a low wall with coping and simple railings. On the return (at the rere) is a venetian window of debased design with heavy, early-eighteenth-century, glazing bars.

        The Round House has a deep bow with a painted, rough-cast facade, a heavy cornice and good Georgian glazing-bars in the window. The bow has a very fine Gibbsian doorcase with large blocks of limestone, a lintel, and a blank slab of limestone instead of a fanlight. The central window of the first floor is slightly wider than those on either side, thus giving the bow a very good proportion of wall to window.12

        Flanking the Round House on the south side is a two-bay, two-storey house with a projecting bay at the southern end. The house continues the heavy cornice, although it has a cemented facade, altered fenestration and a round-headed doorcase.

L     Set back slightly from the street-line is a four-bay, two storey house with eighteenth-century slates on the roof, shallow reveals, wide timber frames to the windows and a carriage arch.

L     The next building is a plain, five-bay, two-storey house with eighteenth-century slates on the roof, shallow reveals, wide timber frames to the window and a carriage arch.

        For the Presbyterian church: see above

        East side from the south side:

R     The first house on this side of the street occupies an important visual position when seen from Cormac Street. It has five bays and three storeys, gable-ends with rough cast battered walls and a high pitched, sprocketed roof. The windows are small and have a good rhythm which slows towards the centre. However, they have lost their original glazing-bars. The house was built in 1758 and has a simple round-headed, architraved doorcase which is probably later in date.

L     Beside it, and undoubtedly later, is a small, two-storey, two-bay house with a rough-cast facade and a plain round-headed doorcase. Both this house and the previous house are set back from the street-line.

L     On the street line is a five-bay, two-storey house with rendered, lined and painted walls and a round-headed doorcase with a simple scroll keystone.

L     The Marian Hostel is a seven-bay, three-storey buildings which was formerly two houses, both of two storeys, one of the doorcases survives and has a good architraved dressings, a cobweb fanlight and a scroll keystone supporting a tiny cornice. The building is fronted by a low wall and eighteenth-century railings with urns.

L     Next is a pair of three-storey houses dating from the early nineteenth century. Both houses were probably the same originally, but the first is now altered and is part of the Marion Hostel. The second house has rough cast walls, a cornice, windows which are four panes wide with all the glazing-bars present, and a round-headed doorcase with architraved dressing and a plain scroll keystones. It also has a segmental-headed carriage arch and fancy railings which probably date from circa 1900.

L     To the north are four, two-bay, three storey houses with rendered walls and a single cornice.

L     ‘ Lawless ‘ and ‘Allens’ are on plain, four-bay, three-storey, eighteenth-century houses with rendered lined and painted facades.

N     The Christian Brothers occupy an impressive, cliff-like house, built in 1789, which is set back from the street-line to emphasise its importance. It has a very tall, five-bay, three-story facade of rough-cut limestone ashlar over a basement. There is a distinct batter to the facade which is topped by a parapet and a simple cornice. The widows have their original glazing-bars, block and start dressings set flush with the facade wall, and an interesting rhythm of fenestration which slows towards the centre. The round-headed Gibbsian doorcase, with a fine panelled door, has a scroll keystone supporting a tiny cornice. The house still has its original lead rain-water hoppers (a great rarity) and is fronted by a low wall with simple railings and stone piers on either side of the hall-door steps. The house is of considerable distinction and is preserved in its original condition.13

R     ‘Kilroys’ is on a five storey, two bay, U-plan house which apparently dates from the early or mid-eighteenth-century. The ground floor has been obscured by a modern shop front but the first floor shows that the house has a facade of considerable coigns, architraves and keystones on the central windows and lunettes (half-moon windows) with architraves and fanlights on the advanced end-bays. The roof is hipped and sprocketed.

R     Beside it is a fine, five-bay, two-storey, late-eighteenth-century house set over a high basement. It has a rough-cast walls and large windows with nineteenth-century glazing-bars. The round-headed doorcase, which is set up a flight of steps with moulding nosing, has a blocked-architrave dressing and a keystone. Fronting the house is a low wall with moulded coping and cast-iron railings. Beside the house is an elliptical-headed carriage-arch topped by a cornice.14 

R     ‘Mercantile Credit’ occupies a substantial seven-bay, three-storey house (built in 1750) with a three-bay breakfront. It has no cornice or pediment and has lost its original glazing- bars, but has painted lime -rendered walls and a tall, narrow Gibbsian door-case with an open-bed pediment dating from the early eighteenth century.33

R     The next building is a four-bay, three-story house with a rough-cast and rendered wall and a cornice. On the ground floor ‘W Dunne’ has a simple timber shop front. Beside it is a three-bay, three-storey house which extends round to O’Connor Square. On the ground floor is ‘J Ginnelly’ which also has a simple timber shop front. These houses were built in 1787.

        Cormac Street

        Cormac Street is a wide, residential street with several terraces of Georgian houses. It also contains the Court House and gaol which, although they are of considerable architectural interest in themselves, have little effect on the streetscape as they are set back from the street line.

        West side from the north end:

N     Set back from the street line is Acres Hall which was built by Thomas Acres in 1786. It is a very handsome, five-bay, two-storey, gable-ended house with a limestone ashlar facade, similar to the house now occupied by the Christian Brothers. The windows have a block and start dressing set flush to the wall, but have lost their original glazing-bars. The windows on the first floor (with one exception) have wrought-iron balconies. The round-headed Gibbsian doorcase has blocked-architrave dressings with fluted blocks and a scroll keystone supporting a tiny cornice. Flanking the house are single-bay, two-storey, lean-to wings with rendered walls. One has a double-sash window set over a niche containing an urn.17

        On the north side is a wall which leads to a small, two-story lodge with tall, slender, engaged columns and a facade inset under a hipped roof. Balancing the lodge on the south side of the house is a carriage-arch also with tall, slender, Doric columns. In front of Acres Hall is a lawn, a rockery, a majestic beech tree, and tall railings with two flat-headed arches. Each arch is composed of four slabs of limestone decorated with pulvinated panels.

L     At the rere of Acres Hall is Acres Folly. It was erected in 1814 to celebrate the successful outcome of the Peninsula War. It is a rectangle tower of three storeys, with rendered walls and iron railings on the top.

L     To the south of Acres Hall is a pair of two-bay, two storey houses with rendered walls, brick string-courses and brick cornices. The segmental-headed doorcases have blocked-architrave heads and chamfered jambs. The two houses share a single stack which is dated 1898.

R     ‘Patrick Llyod’ is on a three-bay, three-storey house with lined rendering on the facade and parallel raised coigns. The admirable shop front, which dates from the late nineteenth century, is of timber and has beautifully-carved console with a dentil course and simple painted are protective brass bars.18

L     Opposite the old gaol is a row of ten, two-bay, two-storey houses built of coursed-rubble limestone with brick window-dressing and brick stacks. Except for three houses the facades are now all rendered. Four houses still retain their original porches with pierced barge-boards.

R     At the end of the row is an attractive pair of two-bay, single-storey, semi-detached houses over basements. They are built of yellow brick with raised coigns, a single central stack. Each house has a tall square-headed doorcase with a rectangular light, simple bracket, and a planked door. In the front is a stout wall of rusticated limestone similar to the wall of the railway bridge. The houses probably date from circa 1840.19

L     The station, a simple building of limestone ashlar, consists of single storey of five bays, with four Italianate stacks, and two single-bay wings. The station was built in 1865.

L     the railway bridge is a wide arch of rusticated limestone with a robust parapet wall.

        East side:

        For the former gaol and the Court House: see above.

R     Beside the Court House is a pair of three-bay, two-storey houses over high basements. The walls are rough-cast and the houses are roofed in two spans. Both houses have a tall flights of steps and elliptical-headed doorcases with engaged, fluted, Doric columns. These doorcases are similar to that on the house next to ‘Walshe’ at the north end of High Street; they probably date from circa 1820. One house has its original door. Between the two houses are a carriage arch and very attractive wrought-iron gates with decorative spirals.

        RNext is a pair of houses which were designed as a single unit. They are of two storeys over basements and together comprise five bays. The central window is over the two round-headed door-cases which are set close together. These have panelled dressings and are approached by a flight of steps. The front is a low wall with railings.36

R     To the north is a terrace of six, three-bay, and two-storey early-nineteenth-century houses. They have rough cast walls and simple, but effective, round-headed doorcases (containing their original panelled doors), with astragals on the arris and plain keystones. The houses e=are fronted by low walls and railings. One house has three wrought-iron balconies and a simple string-course. Another house has an attractive plague with a leopard’s head and swags on it.34 

L     Next is a cement-rendered house of three bays and two storeys. Though not part of the terraces it also has a simple round-headed doorcase. Benjamin Woodward, the Victorian architect, was born in this house.

R     The last house in the street is of considerable streetscape importance as it closes the vista from High Street. It is of three storeys over a basement, four bays to Cormac Street and a single bay to O’Moore Street, with rough- cast walls, wide windows and Georgian glazing-bars. It has an unusual arrangement of steps in front of the fine, early-nineteenth-century, round-headed, architraved doorcase. The steps are set at right angles to doorcase and enclosed in a parapet wall which has wrought-iron railings and a canted wrought-iron arch. There is a low wall, also with railings, around the area. This house is part of the same block as the first house on the south side of O’Moore Street.

        Birr Road

        Birr Road has a number of detached houses dating mainly from the twentieth century and set in their own grounds.

R     On the east side is a large, five- bay, two-storey, late-nineteenth or early-twentieth-century house with cemented walls and a hipped roof. In the centre is a doorcase inset in a round-headed arch with a fluted keystone. On the left-hand side is a rectangular-plan advanced bay and on the other side a half-hexagon low.

L     Set to one side, and further back from the road, is a single-storey red-brick bungalow with an octagonal bow on one corner and red tiles on the roof. It probably dates from the early twentieth century.

        O’Moore Street

        O’Moore Street is a residential street, largely of plain two-storey houses, with exception of the striking Moore Hall at the east end.

        South side from the west end:

R     The first house in O’Moore Street appears to have been built at the same time as the corner house of Cormac Street. It is of three bays and three storeys over a basement with rough-cast walls and wide windows. It has a round-headed, architraved doorcase with a scroll keystone and a timber fanlight. The basement area is of particular importance in the streetscape, not only for turning the corner from Cormac Street, but also for closing the vista at the south end of High Street.

R     Victoria Terrace, at the end of the south side of the street, was built in 1838 and consists of seven, three –bay, two-storey houses. One house has a full height, half-octagon bow with a cornice supported by console brackets over the door; and the last house has a Doric doorcase with engaged columns, a wafer-thin lintel and wide elliptical-headed fanlight. The gardens of several of these houses have low walls, cylindrical gate-piers and simple railings.37

        North side from the east end:

R     Moore Hall has a mid-nineteenth-century facade but the house is very deep and apparently dates from the 1750s. The facade is of three bays and two storeys over a basement smooth rendered and painted. In the centre is a remarkable, full-height bow of limestone ashlar, rectangular on the ground floor and a half-octagon on the first floor, with a grotesque Doric doorcase composed of short paired columns on pedestals and a squat, segmental-headed, leaded fanlight. It is not so much the strange exaggerated design but rather the massiveness of the individual elements which makes this doorcase so bizarre. Over the doorcase is a large window with reticulated tracery flanked by fluted pilasters. Brackets with carved bunches of grapes support the lintel which has a wreath carved in the centre. Over the side windows of the bow are panels with lilies carved on them. The ground floor windows have shouldered architraves while the first-floor windows are plain. The whole facade is flanked by pilasters and topped by a frieze, cornice and blocking course. On the blocking course are stylised urns and over the bow a shell. The hall door is approached by a wide flight of steps with moulded nosing.20

        The garden is fronted by a low wall with wrought-iron railings, lamp bracket and limestone gate-piers. The piers to the yard entrance are octagonal, the arch into the yard is crennellated and the yard is cobbled.

R     The Cottage, beside Moore Hall, is a three-bay, single-story house with lime-rendered walls and a gable ended roof. It has Wyatt windows with brackets on the mullions and a remarkable pointed doorcase with slender gothick piers inset in a wide pointed arch. This large doorcase is emphasised by white paintwork.21

        The garden is fronted by a low wall and neo-greek railings similar to those in front of Moore Hall. The house is difficult to date though it could be as early as 1800.

L     On the street-line is a small house with the Masonic insignia above the door. It is of three bays and two storeys with Georgian glazing-bars in the windows and a square-headed architraved doorcase, painted rendering and raised coigns.

        Bachelors Walk

        The walk, to the east of O’Moore Street, was laid out when St. Catherine’s church was built so that the Earl of Charleville and his family could travel to church without going through the town.

L     Opposite the south-western end (on the continuation of O’Moore Street) is a circa 1910, red-brick house of five bays and two storeys with advanced bays flanking the doorcase. To one side is a large timber conservatory.

        Patrick Street

        Patrick Street was rebuilt after the fire of 1785, with the exception of four houses, one of which is the ashlar-faced house on the north side, now owned by D E Williams. Patrick Street is wider than Church Street, immediately to the east, which suggests that it may have been widened after the fire. Most of the houses are of two and three storeys and several date from the late eighteenth century.

        South side from the east end:

L     ‘Kenaney’s is a plain, six-bay, two-storey house with a rendered and painted facade, a cornice and parapet. It is not of great architectural interest but has a good colour scheme and sensitively scaled plastic lettering.

L     Next is a row of four, three-storey, mid-or late-nineteenth-century houses with rendered facades and architraves to the windows. The facades are brightly painted.

R     ‘K Dunne’ is on a tall, three-bay, three-storey, gable-ended house with lined and rendered walls. The glazing-bars are present in the windows and there is a very attractive round-headed doorcase with panelled pilasters decorated with pateras and a fluted surrounding to the fanlight. The simple timber shop front has painted lettering.

L     ‘R Smyth’ is on a house with a plain painted facade, with striking trompe l’oeil work (painting which simulates stones) on the ground floor. Beside the house are the entrance gates to the Tullamore Distillery which have fine ornamental ironwork.

L     ‘Talbot’ has marbled paintwork on a plain shop front.

        The circa 1940 Garda Barracks closes the vista at the west end of the street.

        North side from the west end:

L     ‘Walsh’ has a simple timber shop front with neatly painted lettering on a five-bay, two storey house which  has shallow reveals to the windows.27

L     ‘Bolger Arms’ is a three-bay, three-storey house with painted rendered on the facade and a simple cornice.

R     The head office of ‘D E Williams’ is a handsome four-bay, two-storey house which survived the fire of 1786. It is set back slightly from the street-line and has a facade of crisply cut limestone ashlar set over a basement. The windows have simple keystones, but appear to be proportionately too small for the facade; the open-bed pedimented doorcase with channelled blocks, although in proportion to the facade, looks to large for the windows. The facade is topped by a heavy cornice and blocking course and the building is separated from the street by neat railings. At the rere is a long range of bonded warehouses, three storeys high, built of coursed-rubble limestone with many openings, arches and hoists. It is a splendid range, well kept, unusual in its length and a relic of past mercantile glories.22

R     The general offices and shop of D E Williams were built in 1941 and designed by Michael Scott. The facade is of nine bays and three storeys with painted rendering and wide metal-frame windows. The seven centre bays are grouped together. The ground floor and the centre bay of the facade are faced with rusticated Rosenallis sandstone, an unusual choice of facing for a building of this date. A curious feature of the facade is the circular display window dressed with radiating rusticated sandstone.23

L     On the corner of Patrick Street and Columcille Street is a two-storey building with an attic storey od dormer windows which were added in 1911. The building is lined, rendered and painted. All the windows have architraves; the dormers have pierced barge-boards.

        Water Lane

 

R     At the west end of Patrick Street is a short street with several massive buildings of rough-cut limestone ashlar and three hefty stacks.

Kilbride Street

        Kilbride Street, to the west of Patrick Street, has been redeveloped with local authority houses on the south side but still retains some of the original two-storey houses on the north side.

R     At the west end of north side is E Molloy’s public house. It is a four-bay, two-storey house with lime-rendered walls and a thatched roof, the only example of thatching in the town. The simple shop front has good sign-writing on the fascia-board and marbled trompe l’oeil work on the shop front.26

Columcille Street

        Columcille Street, formerly William Street, was laid out by the architect John Pentland in 1790. The street is wide and flanked by two and three-storey houses, few of which are of particular architectural interest.

        East side from the south end:

R     ‘Gleeson’s’, formerly ‘Scally’s, occupies an ostentatiously large, six-bay, three-storey building with very wide display windows on the ground floor and first floor. The facade on the ground and the first floor are divided into three bays by channelled piers which have paired brackets with swags on the first floor. The facade on the ground and first floors are divided into three bays by channelled piers which have paired brackets with swags on the first floor, and capitals with swags on the first floor. The original window frames, the oriel in the centre and the fascia-boards have been removed and replaced by less decorative alternatives. The top floor is of six bays of segmental-headed windows with limestone shouldered architraves and keystones set against the brick wall. The facade is topped by a limestone cornice, balustrade, urns, a central pediment with the letter ‘S’ incised on it, and a top-knot crowned with an urn. The building dates from 1911; the architect was T F McNamera, who may have also designed Bridge House which has stylistic similarities.

R     The Allied Irish Bank is a stark three-storey building with a facade of limestone ashlar which is channelled on the ground floor, a cornice and a flat roof. It was designed by J B Boyd Barrett and built in 1949-50.

R     ‘Dolan’s Pharmacy’, on a plain three-bay, three-storey house, has a well-kept Doric shop front with six, engaged, fluted columns which probably date from the mid-nineteenth century. The door to the shop has a broken pediment and is slightly art nouveau in character. 

        West side from the north end:

L     At the north end of the street is a row of four, plain, three-bay, two-storey houses with rough-cast walls probably dating from the early nineteenth century.

L     Facing down Harbour Street are the two of ‘J J Byrne’ which are rendered, lined and painted. The shop fronts have fluted pilasters, pateras on the capitals, marbled paintwork and some attractive lettering.

L     ‘Clarkes’ also has a good painted lettering.

        On the corner of Patrick Street is a two-storey house with dormers, described under Patrick Street.

        Church Street

L     Originally the street was little more than a lane, as the narrow western end testifies. It was extended eastwards in the last decade of the eighteenth century when Francis Johnson was involved in the laying out of plots for houses.

        South side from west end

L     At the rere of Hayes Hotel is a mid-nineteenth-century, seven-bay, single-storey building with brightly painted, lined and rendered walls, parallel raised coigns and a long panel under the parapet. The windows have drip moulds, are pointed and grouped in threes. In the centre is a pointed doorcase.

        For the Methodist church: see above.

        From the Methodist church to the former County Infirmary is a handsome serious of early-nineteenth-century houses whose sites were laid out by Francis Johnston. As a group they warrant an ‘R’ designation.

        Nos7, 8 and 9 are of three-bays and two storeys with rough-cast walls and good round-headed door-cases, of which Nos 7 and 9 have plain dressings; No 8 is architraved.

        No 10 is a four-bay, two-storey house with a round-headed, architraved doorcase with a fluted keystone.35

        No’s 11 and 12 are both of three storeys are both of three-storeys (three bays and four bays respectively), with round-headed, architraved doorcase with fluted keystones. No 11 has windows with architraves and keystones.

        No’s 13, 10 and 19 are of tw3o bays and three storeys with rough-cast walls and simple round-headed doorcases with fanlights. The plain limestone dressings have astragals on the arris similar to the terrace on the east side of Cormac Street.

        For the former County Infirmary: see below under O’Connell Street.

        North side from the east end:

L     This side of the street is less regular and has a mixture of residential houses and shops. The houses are generally two-storey; one house, of three bays and two storeys which is slightly taller than the others, has a round-headed, architraved doorcase with a scroll keystone.

L     Just before the entrance to the Market Place is another house with a round-headed, architraved doorcase and fluted keystone.

L     ‘Colm McCabe’ has a simple shop front with good painted lettering.

Harbour Street

  

        This wide street, formerly Charles Street, is lined with two-storey houses: those on the north side date from 1805, and those on the south side from the 1820s. There is little of distinction apart from the malting at the east end.

        South side from the west end:

 

L     ‘A Gorry’ has an elementary shopfront set into an arch.

L     ‘Kelly’ has a plain timber shopfront with simple console brackets.

L     ‘John Wrafter’, on the east side of Deans Place, is painted and has raised coigns on the ground floor and good sign writing.

L     To the east of houses are mainly residential, of two storeys and with rough-cast walls.

R     At the east end of the street is the substantial malting of ‘P and H Egan’. There is the date 1852, but this refers to the founding of the firm. The main buildings were erected in 1822 and the malting built in 1890. These buildings present a massive rubble-stone wall, the equivalent of three storeys, to the street.

        North side:

        There is little of note, apart from the octagonal entrance gates to the Catholic Church and a few simple shopfronts.

L     ‘E Kelly’, ‘O’Reilly and ‘T Smollen’ each have small shopfronts with neatly painted lettering. ‘Smollen’ is inset into a low arch and ‘O’Reilly’ has a particularly decorative panel.25

       

O’Carroll Street

N     O’Carroll Street is a most impressively proportioned open space, laid out with low terraces of two-storey houses overlooking a wide market place. At the southern end a public building, the former County Infirmary (1788), is the same width as the street and therefore closes the vista successfully. It asserts its importance by being three storeys high. Examples of such careful town planning are rare in provincial towns: O’Carroll Street has more in common with Late-eighteenth-century Dublin where the vistas are closed by public buildings.24

R     The former County Infirmary, later a library, is of five bays and three storeys with rough-cast, battered walls, a simple limestone cornice, hipped roof with graduated slates, four stacks and a fine rhythm of windows. The large round-headed, blocked architrave doorcase is proportioned to suit the facade and has a scroll keystone and sidelights. Fronting the building are tall, heavy, cast-iron railings.24

L     The east side of O’Carroll Street has a row of fifteen two-storey houses, many of which are painted in bright colours.

L     On the corner of O’Carroll Street and Church Street is a range of buildings containing the Chareville School, built by the Earl and Countess of Charleville in 1810. It continues the two-storey line but is built of rough-cut limestone ashlar with wide segmental-headed windows and Georgian glazing-bars in the windows.

L     On the west side of the street is a row of seven, two-storey houses.

R     To the north of the entrance to the Market Square are P and H Egan’s malting which are surrounded by a high wall of coursed-rubble limestone. On the street to Market Square is a filled-in, elliptical-headed arch with a cornice. In Market Square is another handsome arch belonging to Egan’s, and a three-storey warehouse.

L     North of the malting, diagonally set on the corner of Harbour Street and O’Carroll Street, is St. Philomena’s School (1932), of nine bays and two storeys with a cemented facade, block and start dressings to the ground –floor windows, a hipped roof and a copper-roofed lantern.

        Market Square

L     The Grand Central Cinema, designed by T F McNamera, is a two-storey hall with a five-bay bable to the square. In the upper storey three windows are grouped in the centre and flanked by strip pilasters; beneath is a round-headed doorcase. A plague states ‘Irish National Foresters, 1923’. 

        Chapel Street       

`      Facing the Catholic church are eight, two-bay, two-storey, mid-nineteenth-century houses with cement rendered facades. All are neat and simple and act as a suitable foil to the elaborate Catholic Church.

        For the Catholic Church: see above.

        Store Street

R     Behind the Catholic Church are four early-nineteenth-century houses, one of four bays and three storeys and the others of three bays and two storeys. They have rough-cast walls and simple, round-headed, block and start doorcase. 

        St Brigid’s place

R     Facing the canal harbour is an attractive, three-bay, two-storey, gable-ended house with painted, pebble-dashed walls and raised coigns. The windows have Georgian glazing-bars and the round-headed architraved doorcase has a timber fanlight.

L     Beside it is a rendered five-bay, two-storey building, with limestone coigns and drip-moulds over the windows. It was built as a school by the Christian Brothers in 1875. The entrance door, at the head of a flight of steps, is in a projecting gable in the centre of the building. Above the door is a niche containing a statue of St Brigid.

        Convent Road

L     At the west end, on the corner of Columcille Street, it’s a public house, ‘Pat O’Dowd’, of six bays and two-storeys, with rendered and painted walls and a simple round-headed doorcase. The corner of Convent Road and Columcille Street is nicely turned by a diagonally-set bay on the corner.

L     To the east is a pleasant row of three-bay, two-storey houses with round-headed doorcases. All apart from the first house have gardens in front. The first house has an architraved doorcase with a fluted keystone and simple architraves to the windows. The next three houses have simple dressings to the doorcase and one has a cobweb fanlight.

L     Next is a tall, three-bay, three-storey house with a simple round-headed doorcase, flat dressings and a timber fanlight.

L     To the east is a simple, four-bay, two-storey house with rendered walls and a four-bay, three-storey warehouse with lime-rendered walls.

L     On the corner at the east end is St. Columba’s Classical School, dated 1912. It is of five bays and two storeys, with rough-cast walls. The windows on the ground floor are round-headed; those on the first floor are segmental-headed. The door-case is set in a wide surround, with small double Corinthian pillars a semi-circular architrave around the head. On St Brigid’s Place the gable has a three light, traceried window on the first floor.

R     Crossing the entrance to the canal harbour is Bury Bridge, dated 1799. It is an elegant canal bridge with its original parpapet walls and plague. It is the last of the three canal bridges in Tullamore to survive unaltered.

        Kilbeggan Bridge

R     Kilbeggan Bridge carrying the main Kilbeggan road over the Grand Canal is an elegant massed concrete bridge of Circa 1930. It is remarkably thin at the crown and has a wrought-iron balustrade with concrete piers.

R     To the west, on the south side of the canal, is a well kept, bonded warehouse built in 1879. The canal facade is of eleven bays and three storeys built of rough- cut limestone ashlar with yellow brick window-dressings and bars across the windows. At the east end is a large canopy roof to shelter the hoist. Beside the canal is a crane for loading barges.

        Clontarf Road

L     On the north side of the canal, to the west of Kilbeggan Bridge, is a row of local authority houses with rough-cast walls, small panes in the windows, high pitched roofs and tall gables. This attractive row of houses dates from the late 1940s.

        Convent View

 

L     On the north side of the canal, to the east side of Kilbeggan Bridge, is a row of twelve, plain semi-detached , local authority houses, each of three bays and two-storeys, with rough-cast walls and small panes (originally) in the windows. This row dates from 1911-1912.

L     To the east is Convent View Terrace, built about 1907. They have rough-cast walls with red-brick dressings to the wide segmental-headed windows, Georgian glazing-bars, eaves and gables with barge-boards. The terrace was designed as a composition with a large gable in the centre flanked by smaller gables.28

        Arden Road

L     Emmett Terrace, on the east side of Arden Road, is a row of twelve, single storey houses dating from 1902. They have rendered walls, small window-panes in wide segmental-headed windows which have red-brick dressings, and gable-ended roofs with eves and barge-boards.

R     On the west side of the road is the Union Workhouse, designed by George Wilkinson in 1841. The main range survives; it consists of fifteen bays and two-storeys, plus advanced ends of two bays and three storeys with paired gables, wide eves and barge-boards. It is built of limestone ashlar.

N     To the north is the County Hospital designed by Scott and Good in 1937. It is an early example of their work and consequently of considerable architectural interest. Although it is built in a style which is usually termed ‘Modern Movement’ the walls are of rusticated limestone. The main facade faces south and is of twenty-three bays and three storeys. In the centre is a three bay section which has a full-height bow. Flanking it are ten-bay wings arcaded on the ground floors. The windows are wide and have metal frames; the roofs are flat. A glass-walled feature is made of the main staircase which is at the west end, and beside it is the entrance. The entrance block is a single storey and, since the ground rises at this point, it is on the same level as the second floor of the main block.

        There rere of the main block contains the lift-shafts, and the design gives the building am impressive massing. To the east is the chapel which is also of rusticated limestone, with high blank walls, windows with dark-blue stained glass at the frieze level, and a flat roof. Several subsidiary buildings, including the porter’s lodge, are also of rusticated limestone with flat roofs.29