Survey Data
Reg No
50100289
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Original Use
House
In Use As
College
Date
1740 - 1750
Coordinates
316264, 233395
Date Recorded
29/07/2016
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached two-bay four-storey former house over basement, built 1745-6 as pair with No. 43, modified c. 1830 and having recent four-storey return to rear. Now in educational use. Cruciform-plan slate roof, having shared brown brick chimneystack to south with clay pots, and having further L-plan pitched section to rear. Flemish bond brown brick parapet with masonry copings and concealed gutters, with cast-iron downpipe shared with adjoining house. Ruled-and-lined rendered walling to front elevation, with granite plinth course, and with rendered walling to basement; red brick walling (possibly recent refacing) to rear elevation, laid in English garden wall bond. Square-headed window openings, diminishing in size to upper floors, with painted granite sills, and having six-over-six pane timber sliding sash windows, with cast-iron vignettes to first, second and top floors; recent openings to rear elevation. Elliptical-headed door opening with painted stone lugged-and-kneed architrave, decorative leaded peacock's-tail fanlight, and square-headed six-panel timber door with brass door furniture. Granite platform bridging basement area, with wrought-iron arch, four granite steps and wrought-iron boot-scrape. Decorative cast-iron railings with finials on moulded granite plinth wall enclosing basement area. Interior has two principal rooms flanked by entrance and stairs hall compartment, with remnants of original raised and fielded panelling, mostly replacement. Stairs hall has preserved interior with fluted Corinthian pilasters, timber dog-leg staircase, turned balusters, carved handrail and plain tread ends. Compartment has fielded wall-linings, Ionic cornices, timber panelled doors with lugged-and-kneed architraves, and marble chimneypieces. Sited in row of buildings of similar period and style.
Appraisal
No. 42 Saint Stephen's Green, a well-preserved survival from the mid-eighteenth century, was built as a pair with No. 43 by Benjamin Rudd. Its massive chimneystack and low central valley indicate that the buildings were formerly gabled. It is a rare surviving example of the type. With its pair, it possesses one of the few surviving cruciform roofs in Dublin. It one of the earliest surviving buildings on a square which developed in a more ad hoc fashion than the later, mid eighteenth-century, squares. This is evident in the range of styles and irregularities in the street frontages. The pair demonstrates the longevity of the gabled tradition, with this typology continuing to be built in the midst of the fashionable residential centre of the city as late as the mid-eighteenth century. No. 42, along with neighbouring houses, makes a strong contribution to the early streetscape character of Saint Stephen's Green.