Survey Data
Reg No
50010949
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Original Use
House
Historical Use
Shop/retail outlet
Date
1790 - 1810
Coordinates
315967, 235412
Date Recorded
28/11/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Terraced three-bay four-storey house over exposed basement, built c.1800, as one of pair. Interconnected with No. 65, recently in commercial use and currently vacant. Double-pile slate roof with pair of hipped sections to rear set perpendicular to street. Stepped rendered and yellow brick chimneystacks with clay pots to both party walls. Roof hidden behind rendered parapet wall with bitumen covered coping and cast-iron hopper and downpipe breaking through to north end. Cement rendered walls with rendered quoins on rendered plinth course over rendered basement walls. Cement rendered walls to rear elevation with cast-iron tie-plates. Square-headed window openings with painted granite sills and replacement timber sliding sash windows to middle floors of front facade, one-over-one pane to first floor and two-over-two pane to second floor. Replacement timber casement to top floor, and metal roller shutters to ground floor openings. Decorative wrought-iron balconettes to first floor. Single round-arched stair hall window to rear elevation with six-over-six pane early timber sliding sash window and one-over-one pane windows elsewhere. Round-headed door opening with moulded stucco surround and painted stone Ionic doorcase. Original timber door with eleven raised-and-fielded panels flanked by engaged Ionic columns on plinth blocks, blocked up sidelights and quarter engaged responding Ionic pilasters all supporting stepped lintel cornice with festoons and boarded up fanlight. Door opens onto granite platform with cast-iron bootscraper and two granite steps bridging basement. Platform and basement enclosed by original wrought-iron railings with cast-iron corner posts set on moulded granite plinth wall. Matching iron gate provides access to basement via concrete steps.
Appraisal
This house forms part of the most significant surviving terrace on Mountjoy Square. A notable feature of the façade, which is shared with its pair to the south, is the extremely tall first floor window openings, which contributes to the elegance of the terrace. Despite being rendered and having lost its original sashes, No. 66 retains its original doorcase, complete with original door, and is reputed to retain a good interior, thus adding to the wealth of interest of the square as a whole. The retention of many timber sash windows contributes to the architectural character, and the stone steps and plinth , and ironmongery to the entrance and basement area, provides an appropriate and quite intact street edge for this house. Mountjoy Square was built on lands formerly belonging to Saint Mary’s Abbey and laid out in 1790 by Luke Gardiner II, completed by 1818. Originally called Gardiner Square, the plan was to develop a strong vista from Custom House to Mountjoy Square then on to the intended Royal Circus. Although failing to achieve his original ambitious plan for a palace façade with flanking domed pavilions, Mountjoy Square is more carefully laid out than the city’s other Georgian squares. It is symmetrical and has a unified parapet height and the east-west approaches are offset to create a sense of enclosure. After falling into serious neglect and dereliction throughout the twentieth century resulting in the loss of one third of its original buildings, the square has since been repaired. The south and west sides of the square were the worst affected and No.66 is one of only six original buildings to have survived.