Lacken

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 as DXF, in Irish Transverse Mercator metres, with its boundary, parcels and buildings, or as GeoJSON or KML.

• G5Amenity / Green links/Biodiversity conservation/ Open Space/Recreation (Mixed/general 'green'/recreation/conservation, other)
  Kilkenny City and County Development Plan 2021 (Variation 8B), Kilkenny · 4 parcels The zoning objective in the plan
• S5Community Facilities (Mixed/general community services/facilities uses)
  Kilkenny City and County Development Plan 2021 (Variation 8B), Kilkenny · 0 parcels The zoning objective in the plan
• R2Existing Residential (Existing residential)
  Kilkenny City and County Development Plan 2021 (Variation 8B), Kilkenny · 0 parcels The zoning objective in the plan

Source: Tailte Éireann and the Department of Housing (MyPlan), national zoning, CC BY 4.0.

• 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.

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).

Radon

At the centre of the townland of Lacken, about 1 in 10 homes in this area is likely to have high radon levels. Testing a home

Landslides

The 1:50,000 map rates the landslide susceptibility here as moderately high, moderately low, low, partly inferred. Parts of the land are made ground.

Terrain model

LiDAR of the Office of Public Works, flown in 2011, at 2 m: tile OPW_2184 (ZIP).

Flooding

The Office of Public Works publishes its flood maps on floodinfo.ie.

Radon Risk Map of Ireland, Environmental Protection Agency, and Landslide Susceptibility Classification, Geological Survey Ireland, both under 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.

No address of the register names Lacken with five sales or more. The sales of the area are on the page of Co. Kilkenny.

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

18,603 people lived in 6,480 households in the Kilkenny Rural electoral division. 64% of households owned 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.