Killiganoon House And Garden Walls

Killiganoon House and Garden Walls

A country house with adjoining garden walls, built circa 1750 for Richard Hussey. The building was substantially reroofed, refloored, and remodelled circa 1874–75 following a serious fire in 1873.

The garden front features finely coursed slatestone with granite quoins and keystones. The side and entrance fronts are painted brick-faced. The roof is Delabole slate with gable ends in the form of pediments and modillion eaves cornices to front and rear, dating from circa 1875. Brick chimneys stand over partition walls in their original positions, formerly above the ridges of the 18th-century double span roof but now relocated to front and rear of the single span roof ridge.

The main part is of double depth plan with three principal ground floor rooms to the garden front. The central room features a canted bay. A large stair and entrance hall lies behind the central and left-hand room, with a further reception room behind the right-hand room, a small room to the rear left of the stair hall, and a service range to the south-west side. The building is two storeys tall.

The south-east garden front is 2:2:3:2 bays, with a 2-window service wing to the left at lower level. A walling to ground floor sill level with a blocked window opening may survive from an earlier house. A further single storey service range stands to the far left. The main part, originally symmetrical, features a granite plinth and a central canted 3-window bay surmounted by a polygonal roof. Ground floor French windows have marginal glazed overlights. Right-hand ground floor openings are partly blocked with the central pier removed to form one large window, a 20th-century alteration. Other windows are circa 1875 horned sashes with marginal glazing set in original 18th-century openings with shallow arches over. Original circa 1875 gutters with a downpipe on the side wall complete the composition.

The north-west entrance front has a 5-window arrangement with plinth, granite quoins, and brick facing slightly remodelled circa 1875 (originally 3 storeys). The fenestration follows a 1:3:1 bay pattern with central bays broken forward and surmounted by a pediment containing a Venetian window within the tympanum, lighting the roof space. A tetrastyle wooden porch with shallow arches between Doric columns fronts the entrance. The entrance was originally central but is now blocked; the entrance has been relocated to a former window position to the right. An enlarged opening holds a 20th-century transomed casement, with a smaller 20th-century casement in an original 18th-century opening in the right-hand bay. Other windows are circa 1875 horned sashes with marginal glazing. The tympanums of the gables to the side walls are rubble of circa 1875 over 18th-century brick below pediment level.

The interior of circa 1875 survives almost complete, featuring elements of early to mid-18th century style in the Victorian manner. These include an open-well, open-string pitch pine stair with turned balusters, a wreathed handrail over newel, and a cantilevered landing. Plaster cornices with modillions ornament the stair hall and the front north room. Plaster cornices appear in all principal rooms, together with door architraves and panelled reveals. The central front room with its projecting bay retains high dado panelling and a stone fireplace with moulded jambs and a moulded arched hood, probably slightly later in date. A similar style fireplace appears in the stair hall vestibule. Two stone and marble tablets survive from the 18th-century house, one featuring a figure of Britannia, separated from a chariot, now resited in the original door position. The roof structure comprises curious triangulated wooden girders between cross walls.

Adjoining 18th-century slate-coped slatestone rubble garden walls survive, enclosing a rectangular garden to the south-east front and screening the service area by the entrance front to the north.