Survey Data

Reg No

50910136


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Artistic


Previous Name

Munster and Leinster Bank originally Forrest and Sons


Original Use

Bank/financial institution


In Use As

Bank/financial institution


Date

1880 - 1910


Coordinates

315963, 233907


Date Recorded

17/07/2015


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Attached four-bay four-storey commercial building with half dormer attic, built 1881, with recent shopfront to front (east) elevation, and series of extensions to rear. Currently in use as bank and offices. M-profile pitched roof, concealed behind solid brick parapet, with carved limestone coping and decorative iron railings, and having two pedimented attic dormers rising above parapet. Red brick walls, laid in Flemish bond, with moulded brick and carved limestone cornice, raised brick stringcourses between floors, and strip-quoins. Square-headed window openings to first floor and segmental-headed to floors above, double openings to attic storey, with one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows, having bull-nosed brick reveals and generally moulded red brick lintels, with continuous sill course to first floor and limestone sills elsewhere. Raised brick block-and-start brick quoins to middle floors, with limestone keystones to first and third floor openings, those to first floor topped with spherical finials. Shopfront comprising panelled limestone pilasters and limestone cornice, with decorative iron railing above, frames recent limestone and marble shopfront with square-headed openings.

Appraisal

This building formed part of a large commercial block, built to the designs of William Mitchell. The original design was broken by the insertion of the adjoin Art-Deco building which now forms part of Weir's. The site formed part of a valuable property which reverted to the Corporation on the expiration of the old leases, allowing the redevelopment. A high level of ornamentation enlivens the façade, including the moulded window surrounds, raised quoining and stringcourses, which attest to the artisanship involved in the manufacture of machine-made brick in the late nineteenth century. The decorative keystones and finials add artistic interest, and the curved parapet gives this structure a pleasing silhouette. Despite a modern shopfront insertion at ground floor, the building makes a strong contribution to the streetscape of Grafton Street and is representative of coherent, late nineteenth-century commercial architecture.