Lacken
Townland in the civil parish of St. John's, barony of Gowran, Co. Kilkenny; in Irish An Leacain
- Area
- 10 ha
- 25 acres
- Land parcels
- 4
- registered freehold, median 5,706 m² (0.57 ha, 1.41 acres)
- Zoning
- G5
- Amenity / Green links/Biodiversity conservation/ Open Space/Recreation
- Planning
- 1
- applications since 2010
Land parcels
Registered freehold land, Tailte Éireann
4 registered freehold parcels lie mostly in Lacken, from 205 m² to 158,727 m² (15.87 ha, 39.22 acres). The dashed line is the townland's boundary; 8 neighbouring parcels touch it.
Download the townland: DXF, in Irish Transverse Mercator metres, with its boundary, parcels and buildings; GeoJSON or KML.
Zoning
Development plans, national zoning
- G5Amenity / Green links/Biodiversity conservation/ Open Space/Recreation (Mixed/general 'green'/recreation/conservation, other)
Kilkenny City and County Development Plan 2021-2027, Kilkenny · 4 parcels The zoning objective in the plan - R2Existing Residential (Existing residential)
Kilkenny City and County Development Plan 2021-2027, Kilkenny · 0 parcels The zoning objective in the plan - S5Community Facilities (Mixed/general community services/facilities uses)
Kilkenny City and County Development Plan 2021-2027, Kilkenny · 0 parcels The zoning objective in the plan
Source: Tailte Éireann and the Department of Housing (MyPlan), national zoning, CC BY 4.0.
Planning applications
Sites that touch the townland, newest first
6 May 2025Conditional
for the following works. The site is located within the Lacken Architectural Conservation Area. Building fabric upgrade works to include: external insulation to the building façade including new plaster finish, replacement of existing windows and external doors, installation of Solar PV panels and associated plant on the building roof. Permission is also sought for the demolition of existing reception area and construction of a new entrance reception with associated hard and soft landscaping to the front of the building and the reconfiguration of the existing car parking areas, and all associated site & ancillary works
Permission · Kilkenny County Council, 2560240
Source: National Planning Applications, Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, CC BY 4.0. Applicants are not shown.
Nature and heritage
Designated sites and recorded monuments
Designated sites
- Special Area of Conservation: River Barrow and River Nore SAC 002162
- Special Protection Area: River Nore SPA 004233
Recorded monuments
- KK019-028 Water mill - vertical-wheeled
Description
On the N bank of the River Nore, between the river and the Dublin Road, on the outskirts of Kilkenny City. Bradley (2000, 17) cites a medieval reference to a mill at this location in 1307. A watermill is indicated here on the Down Survey (1655-6) parish map of ‘The Parrish of St. Johns in the Liberties of Kilkenny’ (Hibernia Regnum, courtesy of Trinity College Dublin). The accompanying terrier of the parish map mentions, ‘in Sherlockeland is a Mill in repaire’, this property is listed as being Corporation Land in 1640 (ibid.). Doyle (1985, 152) suggests that, ‘Lacken mill may have been once owned by the Sherlock family, as it was part of an area formerly called Sherlock’s land. In 1425 the Earl of Ormond granted two mills to Walter Sherlock’. In the Civil Survey (1654-6) the mills, located, ‘Lying within half a mile from ye Citty Southward upon ye river Neor’, are described as, ‘Lackings Mills being 3 in number und[e]r one ruffe [roof], whereof there are 2 Corne Mills & 1 Tuck Mill ye walls stone and ye ruffe [roof] Thatch: 1 Corne loft’ and the ‘Ten[an]ts when ye Towne was Taken’ is given as Tho[mas] Lein [Lea, Ley or Leigh] (Simington 1942, vol. 6, 549). According to Doyle (1985, 152), ‘the medieval origins of this mill are all too visible’. He describes how the mill was modernized in the 19th century by the Sullivan family who built a brick façade onto, ‘what looks like a fifteenth or sixteenth century structure’ (ibid.). A wall in the mill has ‘an arch of the period’ and an armorial plaque, bearing part of an Archer coat of arms, was discovered in this wall, with ‘an incised carving of a man in sixteenth century costume’ (ibid.). Doyle mentions another Archer coat of arms at the former Archersgrove mills (KK019-050----) c. 1.2km to the SE (ibid. 153). Adjacent to the mill building, ‘there is a silted-up mill stream, besides the one that turned the twin mill wheels’ (ibid. 152). The mills have been disused since 1946 and are currently roofless (Bradley 2000, 17). See attached extract from the Down Survey (1655-6) parish map of ‘The Parrish of St. Johns in the Liberties of Kilkenny’ (Hibernia Regnum, courtesy of Trinity College Dublin) Compiled by: Jean Farrelly Date of upload: 5 October
Architectural heritage
- Steps, 1815–1835 · Regional interest
Description
Flights of cut-limestone or limestone flagged steps, c.1825, with random rubble stone retaining walls.
- Lacken Mills, mill (water), 1770–1775 · Regional interest
Description
Detached ten-bay four-storey corn mill with attic, built 1774. In use as flour mill, pre-1840. Extensively reconstructed, 1876. Disused, 1946. Now in ruins. Pitched roof now gone with no rainwater goods surviving on yellow brick eaves. Random rubble limestone walls with dressed limestone quoins to corners, red brick irregular bond sections to gables, and yellow brick course to eaves. Square-headed window openings in camber-headed recesses with no sills, red brick voussoirs, and remains of timber fittings. Camber-headed door openings with red brick voussoirs, and fittings now missing. Set back from road in own grounds on bank of River Nore.
Designated sites: National Parks and Wildlife Service. Recorded monuments: Sites and Monuments Record, National Monuments Service. Buildings: National Inventory of Architectural Heritage. Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, CC BY 4.0. Works at or in relation to a recorded monument need two months' written notice to the National Monuments Service (National Monuments (Amendment) Act 1994, section 12).
Ground and risks
Radon, landslides, flooding
- Radon
- About 1 in 10 homes in this area is likely to have high radon levels. Testing a home
- Landslides
- Susceptibility moderately high, moderately low, low, low (inferred), on the 1:50,000 map; parts are made ground.
- Terrain model
- LiDAR of the Office of Public Works, flown in 2011, at 2 m: tile OPW_2184 (ZIP).
- Flooding
- The flood maps of the Office of Public Works: floodinfo.ie.
Radon Risk Map of Ireland, Environmental Protection Agency; Landslide Susceptibility Classification, Geological Survey Ireland; both CC BY 4.0. LiDAR: contains Irish Public Sector Data (Geological Survey Ireland & the Office of Public Works) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
Homes sold
Property Price Register
No address of the register names Lacken with five sales or more. The sales of the area are on the page of Co. Kilkenny.
The townland
- Name
- Lacken · An Leacain
- Area
- 100,289 m² (10.03 ha, 24.78 acres)
- Civil parish
- St. John's, and its townlands
- Barony
- Gowran
- Electoral division
- Kilkenny Rural, the unit of the census
- Census 2022
- Kilkenny Rural electoral division: 18,603 people in 6,480 households; 64% of households own their home; 38% of homes were built since 2001; 4% of dwellings stood vacant on census night, and 0% were holiday homes.
- Neighbouring townlands
- Dukesmeadows, Gardens, Leggetsrath West, Maudlinsland, Middleknock, Pennefatherslot
- Placenames
- Lacken on logainm.ie, the Placenames Database of Ireland
Townlands, civil parishes, baronies and electoral divisions, National Statutory Boundaries, Tailte Éireann, CC BY 4.0. Census 2022, Small Area Population Statistics by electoral division, Central Statistics Office, CC BY 4.0. A townland is the smallest land division of Ireland, and the unit of a rural address; old registers such as the 1901 and 1911 censuses file it under its civil parish and barony.