House design guide

What Kilkenny wants your home to look like

Kilkenny County Council wants new rural homes to blend seamlessly into the natural landscape rather than dominate it. The guide promotes simple, understated house shapes with narrow gable widths, traditional roof forms, and natural local materials. Homeowners are expected to carefully integrate buildings with existing mature trees and hedges, maximize solar gain, and avoid bulky, suburban-style designs.

Accepted house types & forms

simple, long and low linear building with a double-pitched rooflinear farmhouseglebe house / classical boxclassical cube house with hipped roofssingle-storey traditional formstorey-and-a-half traditional formtwo-storey traditional form

What they want to see

Encouraged by the guide

Conserve and reuse historic buildings(Page 20)
Whenever possible, aim to conserve, repair, and reuse the county's existing historic rural buildings to retain regional memory and authenticity.
Use natural, locally sourced materials(Page 25)
Select materials like local rubble stone, slate, and timber. They weather well, take on a attractive patina, and require less transport energy.
Maintain narrow gable widths(Page 71)
Keep gable widths narrow to reduce the overall bulk and roof mass of the building (recommended widths: 4.3m to 6.0m for single-storey, 5.0m to 6.5m for 1.5-storey, and 5.0m to 7.0m for two-storey houses).
Protect and retain existing trees and hedges(Page 48)
Incorporate mature native boundaries into the site design. Protect them with secure fencing prior to any construction works.
Design for passive solar gain(Pages 47, 80, 84)
Orientate the main living spaces and largest windows towards the south and west to capture free heat and high-quality natural light.
Subservient garage placement(Page 56)
Locate garages on the north or east side of the house. Ensure they are subservient in position and shape, and do not let them block primary views or dominate the approach.
Staggered native species hedge planting(Page 88)
Plant new hedges using native species like hawthorn, blackthorn, and holly in a double, staggered row at 500mm centres between October and March.

What gets refused

Discouraged by the guide

Avoid 'big bulk' houses on small sites(Pages 37, 63, 65)
Do not build oversized, bulky houses squeezed onto small plots dominated by car turning areas, as they fail to blend into the landscape.
Avoid building on hilltops or breaking the skyline(Pages 37, 41, 74)
Do not position a house on a hilltop where it breaks the skyline when viewed from a county road, as this causes high visual impact.
Avoid synthetic PVCu building materials(Page 25)
Do not use PVCu for windows, doors, fascias, barge boards, or rainwater goods. They degrade, discolour, and erode local character.
Avoid non-native conifer hedging(Page 48)
Do not plant fast-growing, non-native conifers like Leyland Cypress and Lawson's Cypress, which look out of place and support minimal wildlife.
Avoid suburban-style boundary walls and gates(Pages 48, 54, 65)
Do not install suburban concrete walls, ranch fencing, or excessively ornate gateposts, gates, and railings at rural entrances.
Avoid excessively wide gables(Page 71)
Gables wider than 7.0 metres should be avoided as they generate extremely high ridges and overwhelming roof volumes.
Avoid loud, bright wall paint colours(Page 27)
Do not use yellow or pink as the main wall colours. Opt instead for subtle traditional tones like white, soft buttermilk, cream, or beige.
Avoid steep, zigzagging access drives(Pages 41, 55)
Do not create convoluted, visually jarring zigzag driveways to negotiate steep slopes, as they sever garden areas and look unnatural.

Materials & finishes

Natural slate (specifically Bangor Blues or dark grey/black)
Profiled steel (appropriate in small areas for rural shed-style roofs in light grey, red, or green)
Standing seam metals such as zinc or lead
Thatch
Durable timber shingles
Local rubble stone or ashlar stone (Kilkenny limestone or granite)
Lime render and earth-pigmented limewashes
Ashlar finish or rough cast sand-and-cement render (unpainted or painted in subtle subtle tones)
High-specification painted timber for windows and doors
Cast iron or cast aluminium (polyester powder-coated) rainwater goods
Random rubble local stone for boundary walls

Roofs & form

Simple, double-pitched roofs on narrow linear forms
Traditional roof pitches between 35 and 45 degrees
Hipped roofs with low ridge heights relative to the width of the front facade
Narrow gable widths (typically 4.3m to 7.0m depending on the number of storeys)
Clean rooflines without excessive add-ons like intrusive dormer windows, gable projections, and complex valleys

Siting & landscape

Site houses on sloping grounds parallel or at right angles to contours to minimize extensive cut and fill
Settle houses low into the landscape and allow them to 'dig into' hills rather than sit on top of them
Set large houses back from the main road using perspective and mature trees to reduce their apparent scale
Access properties via narrow, hedge-lined, single-track lanes centered on the side rather than the middle of the house
Position entrances where safe visibility splays can be achieved without the excessive removal of existing roadside hedgerows
Establish clear separate zones around the house to keep car parking on the shady side and private gardens on the sunny side
Retain existing native trees, ensuring construction work takes place away from critical root zones