Reg No
50010430
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural
Original Use
House
In Use As
Shop/retail outlet
Date
1720 - 1920
Coordinates
315369, 234444
Date Recorded
23/11/2011
Date Updated
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Terraced two-bay four-storey former house, built c.1725, refaced c.1915, with shopfront to ground floor. Flat roof hidden behind parapet wall, with covered masonry coping and moulded brick course below and further moulded brick course to the base. Machine-made red brick walls laid in Flemish bond, rendered wall to side (south) elevation. Gauged brick stepped window openings with granite sills, brick aprons and replacement timber windows, flat-arch to third floor, segmental-headed to second floor. Large gauged brick semi-circular window opening to first floor with brick hood-moulding, granite keystone and multiple-pane timber display window. Replacement timber shopfront with recessed entrance.
Capel Street was laid out in the late seventeenth century Sir Humphrey Jervis as a prestigious residential street and named after Arthur Capel the Earl of Essex. By 1800 the street had become one of the city's primary commercial thoroughfares and the current plot ratios reflect the buildings of that period. According to the Dublin Civic Trust (2012) 'Survey of gable-fronted and other early buildings of Dublin', this house and its neighbour, No.32, are a pair of early to mid eighteenth century townhouses which were remodelled in the twentieth century. The pair share a central angled chimneystack, a pair of closet returns and facade proportions, features which are indicative of this early date.During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries many buildings were refaced, including this building. Despite the loss of its original windows and shopfront, the current appearance owes much to commercial architecture of the late nineteenth century with its impressive arched window to the first floor. The graduated fenestration and similar neighbouring building suggest a more complex history, adding interest and variety to this historic streetscape.