Survey Data
Reg No
50100479
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Original Use
House
In Use As
Office
Date
1790 - 1810
Coordinates
316606, 233311
Date Recorded
21/07/2016
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached two-bay four-storey former house over basement, built c. 1800 as pair with No. 32, with flat-roof addition to rear. Now in office use. M-profile pitched slate roof, behind brick parapet with granite coping and parapet gutters, having dormer window to south slope of rear roof. Shouldered rendered chimneystacks, yellow clay pots; shared uPVC downpipe. Flemish bond brown brick walling on painted masonry plinth course over painted smooth-rendered basement walling; rendered to rear. Square-headed window openings, diminishing in height to upper floors, with patent reveals, painted granite sills and brick voussoirs. Timber sliding sash windows, replacement six-over-six pane to ground floor and basement, three-over-three pane to top floor and six-over-six pane elsewhere; rear elevation has round-headed stairs window to west bay and tripartite windows to ground and first floors of east bay, three-over-three pane to top floor, eight-over-eight pane to second floor, twelve-over-eight pane to first floor and tripartite six-over-six pane to ground floor. Wrought-iron window-guards to first floor. Round-headed painted masonry doorcase with moulded surround, Ionic columns, entablature with fluted frieze and rosettes, spoked fanlight and seven-panel replacement timber door with brass furniture. Granite entrance platform with cast-iron boot-scrape and two steps to street level. Basement area enclosed by wrought-iron railings with cast-iron posts on painted moulded granite plinth, with steel steps down. Rear of plot fronts onto Little Fitzwilliam Place and has modernized two-storey mews building to lane and square-headed integral carriage-arch behind steel roller shutter.
Appraisal
No. 31 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 around the turn of the nineteenth century. The house retains the well-balanced proportions and graded fenestration pattern typical of the period, and is enriched with a neo-Classical doorcase and fanlight that provide a visual focal point to the modestly ornamented exterior. The retention of window-guards to the first floor, timber sash windows, and the intact setting to the front enhance this building. Despite some loss of original detailing, No. 31 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).