Reg No
20512753
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical, Social
Previous Name
Crawford School of Art once Royal Cork Institution originally Cork Custom House
Original Use
Custom house
Historical Use
College
In Use As
Museum/gallery
Date
1720 - 1725
Coordinates
167472, 72021
Date Recorded
18/03/2003
Date Updated
--/--/--
Detached seven-bay three-storey former custom house, built 1724, with breakfront end bays. Now in use as art gallery. Pitched and hipped slate roofs with red brick chimneystacks. Red brick walls with limestone string course between ground and first floors, moulded eaves course, and ashlar limestone quoins. Ashlar limestone dressings to window openings, with pediments to first floor openings. Replacement timber pivot and casement windows. Ashlar limestone door architrave, flanked by Doric columns having entablature above. Replacement timber panelled door with toplight. Ashlar limestone plinths with wrought-iron railings and gates.
This former custom house which is of apparent architectural form and design makes a notable and positive addition to the streetscape. This building was Cork custom house for just over one hundred years, and was set along King's Dock, which is now built over and forms Emmet Place. The building was presented to the Royal Cork Institution in the early 1830s, and became a school of design in 1850. The materials utilised in the construction of this building articulate the form of the building and add colour and textural interest to the streetscape.