Survey Data
Reg No
50100473
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Original Use
House
In Use As
Office
Date
1790 - 1830
Coordinates
316571, 233330
Date Recorded
17/07/2016
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached three-bay four-storey former house over basement, built c. 1810 as pair with No. 24, having gabled rear elevation with two and three-storey returns. Now in use as offices. Pitched slate roof to front, hipped to east end, behind having brick parapet with granite coping, and pitched roof to rear perpendicular to street. Shared rendered chimneystack to west party wall, projecting to centre of rear elevation, with yellow clay pots. Parapet gutters and shared replacement cast-iron downpipe with trefoil fixings. Flemish bond red brick walling, with wigged pointing to ground and first floors, rebuilt to top floor, on granite plinth course over painted ruled-and-lined rendered basement walling; rendered to rear. Square-headed window openings, diminishing in height to upper floors, with patent reveals and granite sills. Replacement timber sliding sash windows with profiled horns, six-over-six pane to basement with wrought-iron grilles, and one-over-one pane elsewhere, with decorative cast-iron balconettes to first floor. Rear has timber sash windows. Round-headed painted masonry doorcase comprising engaged columns and respond pilasters with Adamesque Ionic capitals, stepped cornice, fluted frieze with rosettes, plain fanlight, leaded sidelights, and ten-panel timber door with brass furniture. Cement-rendered entrance platform with cast-iron boot-scrape and three steps to street. Wrought-iron railings enclosing basement area with decorative cast-iron corner posts on moulded granite plinth. Rear of plot fronting Fitzwilliam Lane enclosed by rubble stone wall with recent brick upper section and steel roller vehicular gate.
Appraisal
No. 25 Baggot Street Lower is sited within a fairly unified late Georgian terrace lining the north side of the street. It is a well-preserved house built, probably as a pair with the building to the west, around the turn of the nineteenth century. The pair are distinguished from their neighbours by their three-bay elevations and gabled rear elevations. The building retains the well-balanced proportions and graded fenestration pattern typical of the period, and is enriched with an Ionic doorcase, and fanlight, as well as ornate balconettes to the first floor, that provide visual focal points to the modestly ornamented exterior. The retention of timber sash windows, and the intact setting to the front enhance this building. Despite some loss of original detailing, No. 25 is relatively well retained, forming part of this principal Georgian streetscape and contributing to the historic core of south central Dublin. The development of this street was planned in the late 1780s and approved by the Wide Streets Commissioners in 1791. Characterized by rhythmic proportions and graded fenestration, the austere and relatively modest facades of this row are aggrandized by the width of the tree-lined street, as the building line steps back considerably from No. 18 to the west, expanding to a breadth of 30m (100ft).