Reg No
50920005
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Historical
Previous Name
Medical Supply Association
Original Use
Shop/retail outlet
In Use As
Shop/retail outlet
Date
1905 - 1925
Coordinates
315946, 233701
Date Recorded
22/09/2015
Date Updated
--/--/--
Attached two-bay four-storey former house and shop, built c. 1915, now in use as shop. Double-pile slate roof, hipped to east with central glazed section and set behind copper-lined parapet wall. Two brick chimneystacks to west party wall. Parapet gutters and cast-iron downpipes to rear (south) elevation. Polished granite clad walls with channel-rusticated soldier quoins, surmounted by decorative stucco cartouches flanked by console brackets and framing modillioned cornice with plain frieze. Cement rendered walls to rear elevation. Square-headed window openings with granite sills, stucco architraves, those to first and second floor framed by double-height architraves, kneed to first floor with stepped keystones, surmounted by cornice to second floor. Largely one-over-one timber sash windows with ogee horns, three-over-six to third floor. Multi-pane timber sash windows to rear with ogee horns and plain surrounds. Full-span shopfront comprises panelled granite ashlar Ionic piers surmounted by large scrolled and foliated console brackets, granite fascia and deep moulded lead-lined granite cornice, surrounding pair of display windows flanking central glazed door. Two polished granite steps front the shopfront. Located on the south-side of Anne Street South.
The decorative polished granite façade exhibits architectural devices fashionable in commercial buildings during the early-twentieth century, though the plot size and façade proportions are characteristic of a Georgian townhouse. The Irish Builder (1916) notes that No. 31 was rebuilt during this year, by Donnelly & Moore for the Medical Supply Association. The extent of this ‘rebuilding’ work is unclear and the building probably incorporates earlier fabric. The well-executed carved granite shopfront and façade embellishments are eye-catching features and the building forms part of a group of varying building types that gives exceptional character to the streetscape and the wider Grafton Street area.