Jamesbrook
Jamesbrook Hall is a five-bay, three-storey manor house with a full-height bow on the northern façade. The property is located at the harbour’s edge in east Cork. It was built in the 1780’s for Wallis Adams (1749-1818), whose wife Frances bought him the estate. The house itself is an addition to an earlier residence which sits to the east of the house, and which was owned by Michael Goold who purchased the estate from the Earl of Inchiquin in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
Jamesbrook Hall has a variety of ancillary buildings which were predominantly developed in a linear pattern to the west of the main house. These buildings included: worker’s cottages, stables, a coach house and barn, a blacksmith’s forge, a milking house and an adjoining yard. In recent years many of these buildings had fallen into disrepair and risked being lost forever. The property owner in collaboration with Gebel & Helling Stone Conservation had the ambition to repair these buildings and make them into a space for crafts.
The strategy for the project is to create a long term masterplan for the site and existing buildings which respects the history of the place while also creating a space for the crafts to flourish. The proposed programme includes: stone cutting workshops, demonstration spaces, an administration space, storage as well as on-site accommodation for visiting craftspeople and workers.