Fermoy, County Cork owes its origins to Scottish entrepreneur John Anderson who settled in this part of the country in 1780. The following decade he bought land on the Blackwater river and there developed a town, its growth greatly helped by the presence of a military barracks which Anderson also built. The demand for better quality housing in turn led to the creation of St James’s Place on rising ground on the northern side of Fermoy. Begun in 1808 it was intended to have six residences but within ten years Anderson had suffered a series of financial reverses and so only five houses were built. In the last century these handsome redbrick buildings were allowed to deteriorate and by the start of the 1980s they had all been internally divided with 1 St James’s Place condemned as unfit for human habitation.
Subsequent restoration of this house and three of its neighbours demonstrates the nonsense of such official opprobrium and ensures that today the terrace of four surviving properties are among the finest in Fermoy, or indeed any other town in the region. Number 1 is particularly interesting because the middle bay curls around to meet the most northerly of the three, stepped back to allow more access to the fine doorcase with side and fan lights.