The one at Dromderrig, in County Cork, is rather more quietly anomalous: an early eighteenth-century building that once served the formal business of taxing goods and regulating trade, now sitting in the rural Cork landscape with its bureaucratic origins largely forgotten.

The building dates from the early 1700s and its architecture is a considered piece of work for its period and setting. The front elevation runs to five bays across two storeys, with the central three bays pulled slightly forward to form what is known as a shallow breakfront, a subtle device common in Georgian design that gives a facade a sense of hierarchy without dramatic projection. The front doorcase is framed by a Gibbs surround, a distinctive treatment in which large blocks of stone interrupt the architrave at intervals, a motif associated with the English architect James Gibbs and widely adopted in eighteenth-century Irish and British buildings. Two additional bays were added to the left of the original front, with an archway cut through at ground level. Inside, the building retains features that speak to the quality of its original fit-out: raised fielded-panel shutters, shouldered architraves, and panelling that Garner, writing in 1980, described as good examples of eighteenth-century joinery. Raised fielded panelling refers to panels with a central section slightly raised above a surrounding flat border, a technique that gives depth and shadow to otherwise plain wall surfaces.