Ballaghtobin, Callan, Co Kilkenny
Mark Bence-Jones. A Guide to Irish Country Houses (originally published as Burke’s Guide to Country Houses volume 1 Ireland by Burke’s Peerage Ltd. 1978); Revised edition 1988 Constable and Company Ltd, London.
p. 16. “(Knox/IFR; Gabbett/IFR) A Georgian house, built by a descendent of William Baker, who was granted the estate, which had originally belonged to the Tobin family, 1660; subsequently reduced in size and inherited towards the end of C19 by a branch of the Knox family, from whom it passed by inheritance to the present owner, Lt-Col R.E. Gabbett. In 1953, finding the house ‘ugly and awkward’ Col Gabbett demolished the greater part of it, and built a two storey modern house in the Georgian style, incorporating what remained. The architect of the new house was Donald A. Tyndall.”
Detached four-bay two-storey house, rebuilt 1953, incorporating fabric of earlier house, c.1750, on site with single-bay two-storey side elevations, and two-bay two-storey return to north-east leading to four-bay three-storey end block to east having two-bay three-storey side elevations. Now in use as guesthouse. Hipped slate roofs with clay ridge tiles, rendered chimney stacks, rooflight, and cast-iron rainwater goods on slightly overhanging rendered eaves. Ivy-clad unpainted roughcast walls with inscribed cut-limestone date stone/plaque, and unpainted rendered walls to rear (north) elevation. Square-headed window openings (some in tripartite arrangement) with cut-limestone sills, six-over-six timber sash windows having two-over-two sidelights to tripartite openings, and three-over-six timber sash windows to top floor end block. Elliptical-headed door opening with two cut-limestone steps, carved cut-limestone surround, timber panelled pilaster doorcase, timber panelled double doors having sidelights on panelled risers, and fanlight. Elliptical-headed door opening to house with timber panelled pilaster doorcase, glazed timber panelled door having sidelights on panelled risers, and fanlight. Interior with timber panelled shutters to window openings. Set back from road in own grounds with gravel forecourt, and landscaped grounds to site.
A substantial house of two periods of construction resulting from the mid twentieth-century redevelopment of a mid eighteenth-century range for R.E. Gabbett (n. d.) to designs prepared by Donald Alfred Tyndall (d. 1975). Classically-derived details including the Wyatt-style tripartite arrangement to some window openings, the elegant treatment of the doorcase, and so on all serve to enhance the formal architectural design value of the composition. Having historic connections with the Tobin, the Whyte Baker, the Johnston, the Knox and the Gabbett families the house remains an important element of the built heritage of the locality.
Irish Historic Houses 