Trim Castle Visitor Centre plans unveiled by OPW

The Office of Public Works (OPW) has unveiled its plans to conserve and upgrade Trim's Market House as a modern visitor centre for Trim Castle with the project expected to go for planning in a month's time.

The old dance hall will be demolished and a smaller extension to the Market House will be built in its place with extensive glazing and a roof terrace area for optimum views of Trim Castle.

Part of the brief was to integrate the castle better with the town and there will be public realm spaces that are accessible to the general public and public toilets will also be provided.

On the ground floor, the new visitor centre will have an entrance lobby, welcome room with reception, exhibition space, and staff area as well as public toilets and changing space.

Upstairs will be the audiovisual immersive experience exhibition, a flexible exhibition space overlooking the castle and a sensory space. A feature window will frame views of the Yellow Steeple.

The built up arches fronting onto the street will be re-opened and replaced with glazing with the centre ones to have openings.

An outdoor performance space also forms part of the plan.

The fly tower will also be demolished and extensive landscaping will be carried out in the moat area with two reflective pools linked with metal effect paving to symbolise the moat.

The presentation was given by OPW architects Maire O'Sullivan and Terri Sweeney at yesterday's meeting of Trim Municipal District Council and councillors were clearly very impressed with the plans and anxious that they should proceed as soon possible.

In her presentation, Ms O'Sullivan said Trim Castle was the largest and best preserved Anglo-Norman Castle in Ireland and the area that Trim Market House is in "is full of heritage and medieval treasures".

She said the Market House and dance hall are located in what would have been the moat of the castle.

"The Market House has a lovely address to Castle Street and as part of this plan, we wanted to remove the additional buildings, remove the dance hall and fly tower so we can improve the visual connection of the castle to the street."

She outlined that Shaffrey Conservation Architects had been employed to carry out a conservation plan and report for market house and they know the original three bay house was built in 1850. It was burnt by the Black and Tans in 1920, and rebuilt with two additional bays in 1925. While many of the internal characteristics are no longer there she said they will conserve as much as much of the 1920s heritage as they can. The dance hall was built 1950.

They have identified a public realm area to the north, and the opportunity to pull back the ramparts access to the castle to provide a better visual of the castle and a better connection to the street.

A landscaped area will be provided to the rear to view the curtain walls and improve their setting. A performance area is proposed to south.

A covered walkway will connect the visitor centre to the base of the ramp to the castle.

In terms of archaeology, four trenches were opened to a depth of 2m and no features were identified so they believe the area was filled with clay from elsewhere when the original Market House was built.

Ms O'Sullivan said they have included the bus shelter in the plans but are in discussions with Bus Eireann over the possiblity of moving it.

Local councillors were clearly wowed and very excited by the plan with Cathaoirleach Noel French describing as "amazing, wonderful and breathtaking", while Cllr Trevor Golden said it was "stunning".

Cllr Joe Fox said it would be a great asset for the town and he looked forward to getting it through as soon as possible.

One of the first questions asked was whether the toilets would be open to the general public and they were assured they would be. Ms O'Sullivan said the idea is that it would be free to go through the building to the moat at the rear and that the the toilets would also be accessible.

Councillors agreed that there was a case for the bus stop to be moved further down the street to the area where Trim Garda Station is and felt there should be a bus drop off point only.

Cllr Golden also suggested that they should revisit the idea of making Castle Street one-way to improve the public realm further and be able to provide wider paths and Director of Services Des Foley said they could look at the wider public realm in that area in the context of these plans.

Regarding opening hours Ms O'Sullivan said before lockdown, Trim Castle had 100,000 visitors a year and they wanted to get back to that and build on it and that opening hours would be extended. At present Trim Castle opening hours are seasonal.

In terms of timelines, Ms O'Sullivan said they "had been promised that there is a nod coming from National Monuments from the Minister to get it out on public display".

"We are working very hard towards that and are hopeful that it imminent. In the next month, we hope we would be in a position to get the part eight on public display."