Survey Data
Reg No
20514307
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Original Use
House
In Use As
Shop/retail outlet
Date
1780 - 1800
Coordinates
167710, 71758
Date Recorded
06/08/2002
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Terraced two-bay four-storey house, c.1790, on a rectangular plan. Renovated, 1959, with shopfront inserted to ground floor. Pitched slate roof with cast-iron rainwater goods on rendered eaves. Rendered, ruled and lined walls with mild steel tie plates. Mosaic tiled shopfront to ground floor with cantilevered concrete hood. Square-headed window openings (upper floors) with concrete sills, and six-over-six timber sash windows. Interior including (ground floor): shop with glazed timber display cases; (first floor): drawing room with moulded plasterwork cornice to ceiling. Street fronted.
Appraisal
A house retaining much of its original form and fabric with openings diminishing in scale of each floor producing a graduated visual impression and showing small-pane sash windows. The sleek shopfront designed (1959) by Frank Murphy (1916-93) ensured that the displays of goods made just as much an impression at night as they did during the day with fish tank-like vitrines internally lit as curio cabinets. A mosaic sign inscribed "CHEMIST/AND/DRUGGIST/ESTABLISHED/1845" is overpainted "CURE YOUR/CORNS WITH/MAYNE'S/CORN SILK". NOTE: 7 Pembroke Street was once occupied by the Scottish-born James Selkirk who, according to The British Medical Journal (16th April 1892), was 'prosecuted at the insistence of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, and fined £5 for having acted as a pharmaceutical chemist by filling subscriptions. The peculiarity about this case is that Mr. Selkirk has been a member of the London Pharmaceutical Society for many years, but is debarred from acting in Ireland, although he could dispense medicines in England. It is urged that to be a member of a Pharmaceutical Society in one of the divisions of the United Kingdom ought to be sufficient to permit a person to practice in all; but [under the Pharmacy (Ireland) Act of 1875] a member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland cannot carry out his calling in England and a member of the London Society cannot act in Ireland' (The British Medical Journal 16th April 1892, 828). The Chemist and Druggist (18th May 1895) later reported on the registration of the 'MUNSTER DRUG COMPANY (LIMITED)…in Ireland with a capital of 2,000/ in 1/ shares. Objects: To acquire, take over as a going concern, and carry on the business of a pharmaceutical chemist, druggist, patent medicine vendor, and perfumer carried on under the style of "James Selkirk & Co" by James Selkirk' (The Chemist and Druggist 18th May 1895, 685). The Pharmaceutical Journal (1902) subsequently reported that 'Arthur Mayne, L.P.S.I, has purchased Mr. James Selkirk's interest in the old-established pharmacy [at] 7 Pembroke Street Cork' (The Pharmaceutical Journal 1902, 650).