Outside Waterford, the name of John Roberts is relatively little known but this should come as no surprise since most of the architect's finest work survives either in his native city or its environs. Roberts was certainly responsible for the entrance courtyard of Curraghmore, he may have worked on Mount Congreve - both of these houses are in Co Waterford - and he is reputed to have designed Tyrone House in Co Galway and the somewhat similar Moorehall in Co Mayo. But for indisputable examples of his work, it is best to visit Waterford city, where Roberts was born in 1712, some 30 years after his Welsh grandfather had settled there. Roberts is said to have spent some time as a young man studying in London, although it is not known with which architect he worked. By 1750, he was back living in Waterford and married to a Huguenot heiress, Mary Sautelle, by whom he had no less than 24 children. Two of his sons, Thomas Roberts and Thomas Sautelle Roberts, would become famous landscape painters, and his great-grandson was Field Marshall Earl Roberts of Waterford. Through his wife, John Roberts became acquainted with Richard Chenevix, Bishop of Waterford, who gave the architect a commission to finish work on the episcopal palace, begun in 1741 to the designs of Richard Castle. This large limestone property, now owned by the local authority, continues to dominate both the Mall and Cathedral Square, although on the latter side, the palace lost its railinged carriage sweep and flanking rusticated gateways during restoration work in the 1970s. The building's two facades are relatively plain; the one overlooking the Mall has a Doric centrepiece below a circular niche but its powerful presence is due more to mass and height than decorative detailing. It was presumably thanks to Roberts' clerical connections that he received the job of designing a new Church of Ireland cathedral to replace the one which dated from the 11th century. Described by architectural historian Mark Girouard as "the finest 18th-century ecclesiastical building in Ireland", Christ Church Cathedral's limestone exterior is dominated by a pedimented portico above which soars a square steeple topped by an octagonal spire - a familiar landmark visible to anyone approaching Waterford. The cathedral, which is still receiving treatment for damp in its walls, offers an airy neoclassical interior, with funerary monuments - a handful rescued from the building's predecessor - congregated in the ante-chapel area. Beneath an elaborate stucco ceiling, dating from after a serious fire in 1815, two lines of Corinthian columns on marble-cased square bases lead up to the pedimented reredos. Close by the cathedral is the next of Roberts' most important commissions, the City Hall. Begun in 1783, this building was originally designed as a theatre and assembly rooms. However, 30 years later, the local authority transferred its own offices to what has since been the City Hall. However, while the assembly rooms were lost, the theatre remained in situ and was recently restored and given a new glass and limestone extension. The building is of nine bays, the centre three having a rusticated ground floor with arched windows and pilasters rising above. Inside, one of the City Hall's most striking features is the massive staircase finished by a glass dome. In his old age, Roberts seems to have been busier than ever. From the last years of his life date the large former County and City Infirmary, the Chamber of Commerce's premises (originally built as a private house for the Morris family) and Waterford's second cathedral. The first such building to be erected for Roman Catholics on this island since the 17th century, Holy Trinity Cathedral was begun in 1792 after the corporation provided a plot of land on Barronstrand Street for this purpose. Although designed less than 20 years later than its Church of Ireland equivalent, this cathedral is quite different in character, its broad front decorated with Ionic pilasters beneath a pedimented roofline flanked by balustrades.
It was while working on Holy Trinity Cathedral that John Roberts died in 1796 at the age of 84. He habitually rose at 6 a.m. but one morning set out three hours earlier for the building site where he fell asleep and caught a chill from which he never recovered. The architect is buried not in either of the cathedrals he designed but in the grounds of the city's French Church.
The John Roberts Weekend in Waterford begins on Friday and continues until Sunday. Tel:1800-399400.