TREASURES OF ARCHITECTURE IN AUGHRIM DAVID MEDCALF
REPORTER DROVE TO PICTURESQUE AUGHRIM TO USE THE NATIONAL INVENTORY OF ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE AS HIS GUIDE. HE FOUND THAT THE GRAND NAME CONCEALS A USER-FRIENDLY ONLINE TOOL
FORGET your TripAdvisor and your tourism apps, the most useful on-line tool you need when exploring the towns of County Wicklow is a website which is criminally under-promoted. Granted, this fabulous internet resource, provided by National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, is not so hot when it comes to dealing with the county’s justly famous landscape. The NIAH site is more useful for town strollers and village visitors than it is for hard core hikers who prefer to head out into the wilds of the hillsides. But there is surely no more quirky and informative guide to the man-made features that are generally found at lower altitude.
So proceed directly to www.buildingsofireland. ie and skip straight on to the ‘Building Survey’ section to unlock a wealth of architectural knowledge. Then you are but one click away from diving into a wealth of pointers to the highlight landmarks of our built environment. The building survey is a national undertaking, so have it ready to consult wherever you may happen to be anywhere in the Twenty-Six Counties. Yet it is especially good in dealing with Wicklow, providing hundreds of neat descriptions of houses and public buildings, from Greystones to Grangecon, from Kilcoole to Killahurler.
The surveyors have also taken it upon themselves to embrace bridges and statues, as well as all the other little features which contribute to lifting a place out of the ordinary. A quick skim through the references to Wicklow Town, for example, shows that the compilers have fallen in love with five post-boxes and three lighthouses. What other town in Ireland can boast five architecturally significant post boxes and three lighthouses?
Each post-box, each lighthouse, not to mention each pub, each private residence, each whatever, is presented on www.buildingsofireland.ie with a photograph and a brief summary of its origins and merits. The site is very phone friendly so it may readily be consulted on the hoof as well as when planning an outing. This is what the world wide web should really be about – stimulating, accessible and practical in dealing with a subject which repays either deep study or casual interest.
THE verdict of the NIAH experts is delivered straight-faced with an occasional hint of underlying humour. Take for example the water tower on the Coolgreany Road in Arklow, a lofty concrete structure of surpassing ugliness. Presumably it qualifies for heritage honours as an example of practical 1950s construction skills, though it must be hard to love. The surveyors asked to summarise its appeal must surely have smiled as they wrote their judgment: ‘Stark but somehow elegant’.
In order test the practical value of www. buildingsofireland.ie as an aid to architectural exploration, your reporter high-tailed it to Aughrim, a destination chosen not quite at random. The reasoning was that Aughrim – the ultimate Sunday drive destination – must have plenty of features of value. A quick look on the internet beforehand confirmed that this indeed was the case, with the village having 40 entries on the survey. That puts it in the same league as Shillelagh (which also has 40) or Baltinglass (which has 39) or Rathdrum (which has 45), a total by no means shabby for a place with a population of around 1,400.
Blessington, for all its fine history and growing population, has a mere 28 entries while Carnew has 22 and Rathnew a miserly 11. Please note that the small numbers may include some startlingly unique attractions. Rathnew’s heritage extends to the glories of Tinnakilly House, now a hotel – a ‘four-bay two-storey with attic country house’. How’s that for posh! And Carnew has a genuine 16th century castle, much older than anything on the inventory for Aughrim, where the
THE CHIPPER IN AUGHRIM IS IN A MID-19TH CENTURY FORMER MARKET HOUSE, WHICH GIVES THE CENTRE OF THE SMALL TOWN A SENSE OF IMPORTANCE
19th century provides most of the entries.
The selectors also have in their squad for the 1798 monument erected in 1998 to mark the 200th anniversary of the United Irishmen revolt. The memorial underlines that local stone is the material which make this place distinct. The tribute to the United Irishmen rebels may only be in position a couple of decades but, as it was fashioned from granite, it has blended in immaculately with all the old stuff.
And Aughrim certainly has plenty of old stuff, reminders of the past which were simply too well built from solid materials to disappear. Mind your step while wandering along the main street or you may trip over a stone water trough. The horses for which the trough was designed were put out to pasture generations back but the troughs remain as improvised flower beds.
The old railway line on the Shillelagh branch of the Dublin & South East Railway is decades discontinued but the train station remains, complete with the original platform, to be glimpsed from the Arklow road through a screen of conifer trees. The old flour mill is similarly long redundant, making way in the local economy for more modern industries which have taken root on the outskirts of the town.
Yet there is still something magnificent about the old mill, which is too solid to be demolished, though there are signs of wear and tear, prompting a plaintive observation from the NIAH: ‘Although this building is now unused, it is an important asset to the town’s building stock. It is now at risk and its loss would be a great blow to the town’s heritage.’ And so say all of us, though heaven alone knows how conservation could be financed.
Aughrim is scattered with such old treasures, while remaining very much a working town, not a quaint folk park or architectural museum. Yet it is hard for visitors not to be smitten by the picture postcard treasures which seem to be waiting at every corner. Pulling up and parking on the road out to the Gaelic grounds, your reporter found himself outside the local outpost of the Church of Ireland.
Sorry, but cute was the only adjective which seemed to fill the bill to his mind, though the assessors from the Buildings of Ireland survey personnel deliver a more sober judgement on St John’s Church. After noting that it was built in 1912 from the inevitable granite, with roof tiles of natural slate, they remark: ‘This early 20th-century church is unusually small. It nevertheless adds much to the character and variety of the historic heritage of the town.’ And then some!
NOT FAR AWAY may be found the understated joys of Ardee Row, which merits six separate entries on the inventory. A date stone traces the origins of the terrace back to 1893 built for local workers on the big estate. In the intervening years, each of the six has received different treatments, been customised in assorted ways, without ever losing the essence of their collective charm. Or to put the same thought in NIAH speak: ‘The streetscape gains variety and interest from its presence.’
Such discreet attractions might be overlooked but for reference to www.buildingsofireland.ie. Others are more obvious: Situated on a busy corner, the Pescegrande chipper must be the grandest takeaway in all of Ireland, resplendent and imposing in stone. Look up when entering the eatery and you may notice a coat of arms, complete with a flock of birds, carved into the wall above your head.
The survey discloses that Pescegrande, formerly the Captain’s Table, was once the village market house and it dates from 1860. The list includes several other commercial premises but not the landmark Lawless’s Hotel which predates them all. It has been catering to the passing trade since 1787 in the era of the horse drawn coach but its roots have been largely lost under layer upon layer of extensions and embellishments.
The survey is drawn instread to unadorned private residences assembled from rough cut stone, with neat red brick around the windows. It is a look 19th century look so attractive that it has prompted plenty of double-glazed modern imitation.
Three bridges make the cut for inclusion on the web-site – Aughrim Bridge (‘freestanding four-arch hump-back’), Roddenagh Bridge (‘freestanding three-arch road bridge’) and Tinnakilly Bridge (‘an early example of the use of reinforced concrete’).
There is no room among the 40 for the village water pump – perhaps because it no longer pumps water – or the garda barracks which is impeccably neat and painted a relaxing shade of lilac. The list does extend, however, to a series of eccentric, oddball one-offs such as the old blacksmith’s forge with its horse-shoe shaped door (‘a well preserved late Victorian decorative blacksmith shop which is radically different from the typical terraced buildings of the town’) and the gateway to the flour mill (‘it announces the existence of a large and important building’).
The moral of the story? Never leave home without consulting www.buildingsofireland.ie.