Survey Data
Reg No
50100508
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Original Use
House
In Use As
Office
Date
1780 - 1800
Coordinates
316834, 233479
Date Recorded
10/08/2016
Date Updated
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Description
Attached three-bay four-storey former house over basement, built c. 1790 as one of terrace of three (Nos. 41-43), with two-storey over basement return to north end of rear with higher west end and with canted projection to east end of south elevation. Now in use as offices. Pitched slate roof to front, behind refaced brick parapet with granite coping, and having two fully hipped roofs to rear perpendicular to street. Shouldered brick chimneystacks with clay pots. Cast-iron rainwater goods to north end. Flemish bond brown brick walls, refaced above top floor window head, on moulded granite plinth course over rendered basement walling; rendered walling to rear. Square-headed window openings, diminishing in height to upper floors, with raised rendered reveals and painted granite sills, and with carved granite block-and-start surrounds to basement openings. Timber sliding sash windows, nine-over-six pane to first floor, three-over-three pane to top floor and six-over-six pane elsewhere; rear has timber sliding sash windows, two-over-two pane to return and tripartite six-over-six pane to south bay of house. Wrought-iron grilles to basement. Tripartite elliptical-headed door opening with render surround, fluted and rosetted frieze over door opening, moulded cornice, engaged Ionic columns with respond pilasters flanking decorative leaded geometric sidelights with swags to frieze, peacock's tail fanlight in fluted surround, and ten-panel timber door with brass furniture. Granite platform with five granite steps. Basement area enclosed by wrought-iron railings with decorative cast-iron posts on moulded granite plinth. Cast-iron coal-hole covers set in granite flags to footpath. Three-bay two-storey possible former mews house to rear of plot. Interior noted by Casey (2005) as having simple neo-Classical detailing.
Appraisal
No. 42 Merrion Square forms part of the original development of the eighteenth-century square. It was built on a plot leased to Nicholas Le Favre, lottery office keeper, in the late eighteenth century. It retains an Adamesque doorcase complete with decorative sidelights and fanlight, that provides a decorative focus to the otherwise restrained façade. It displays good fenestration with typical panages to the openings. Together with its intact setting details, this building contributes to the intact appearance of the square. The survival of an early decorative coal-hole cover is increasingly rare. Developed as part of the Fitzwilliam Estate, the square is one of the best-preserved Georgian streetscapes in Ireland. The north, east and south sides of the square are lined with terraced houses of eighteenth and nineteenth-century date, while the west side is terminated by the garden front of Leinster House. The houses of the east side are the most uniform of the terraces on the Square, maintaining similar building heights and fenestration patterns. Individuality was introduced through the use of elaborate doorcases, window ironwork and interior decorative schemes. The east side of the square was originally set out in five large plots and the houses built here were generally narrower than those on the north side and erected in a piecemeal fashion.