Survey Data

Reg No

21517044


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Artistic


Previous Name

Bank of Ireland


Original Use

House


In Use As

Bank/financial institution


Date

1790 - 1810


Coordinates

157423, 156812


Date Recorded

22/07/2005


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Corner-sited end-of-terrace four-bay four-storey over basement stucco-fronted building, built c. 1800, with three bays to Glentworth Street and a five-bay single-storey matching building attached to the rear, with a former coach house building to Post Office Lane. Formerly two terraced houses, joined in the nineteenth century and extended in 1921 with a early twentieth-century classical treatment. Hipped roof hidden behind parapet wall with plain cornice supported by series of large corbels and stringcourse. Painted ruled and lined rendered walls with a Greek key platband below third floor windows and a plinth course below first floor windows with a fluted frieze below. Channel rusticated rendered walls to ground floor with coursed and squared ashlar limestone walls to basement level. Square-headed window openings with decorative moulded surrounds and timber sash windows throughout. To the third floor, moulded architrave surrounds with disc panels to the corners and six-over-six timber sash windows. To the second floor a heavy cornice supported by geometric console brackets and guttae enriched aprons to the sills with six-over-one timber sash windows. To the first floor a moulded architrave surround with a plain cornice above and nine-over-nine timber sash windows rising from a continuous plinth course. To the ground floor a plain surround with limestone sills and nine-pane fixed-pane window with a six-pane overlight. To the basement a voussoired limestone camber-arched window opening with limestone sills and three-over-six timber sash windows (possibly original) and iron bars. A heavy carved limestone door surround to the front elevation comprises a pair of pilasters with guttae enriched concave corbels supporting a heavy cornice with a fluted frieze and parapet. A central square-headed door opening with a fasces moulded surround and an inner architrave, flanked by a pair of fixed-pane metal windows with margin lights. Double-leaf hardwood doors with brass furniture and a single panel to each outlined by a classical carving matching the frieze to the cornice above. The cement paving to the front with two iron bootscrapers is flanked by curved cast-iron railings with fasces cast-iron posts on a limestone plinth course enclosing the entire basement area to both elevations. The five-bay single-storey section attached to the rear has a partially glazed roof hidden behind a parapet wall with masonry balustrade and central block with a date plaque '1921'. A heavy cornice below has mutules and a chamfered corner to either end. Painted ruled and lined walls on a moulded limestone plinth course with channel rusticated ends and a recessed section containing the bays having a series of fasces motifs above. Square-headed window openings with fixed-pane twelve pane windows and six-pane overlights with limestone sills. A wrought-iron railing on a squared and coursed ashlar limestone wall continues along Glentworth Street returning to meet the former coach house. Formerly two coach houses, joined c. 1921, with a rendered gable end matching the façade treatment of the principal buildings. Pitched artificial slate roof with a central rendered chimneystack and squared and snecked tooled limestone walls. Being four-bay and two-storey to a courtyard with a rendered façade and having three-over-three timber sash windows to the first floor (with horns) c. 1900, and six-over-six to the ground floor, (without horns) possibly original. A single tongue-and-groove timber door with overlight opens into the yard with a former round-arched door opening now blocked up. Fronting onto Post Office Lane is the exposed stone elevation with a pair of red brick round arches evident, one with a double-leaf timber door, lintel and access opening above and the other with a roller shutter providing vehicular access. The interior of the banking hall, located in the 1921 extension, retains much of the 1921 detail though some fixtures have been removed such as the counter. Salvage wall panels are located in the Brazen Head on O'Connell Street. A coffered ceiling features many abstracted classical plastered details, including a shallow domed rooflight and a smaller oval rooflight with Greek key pattern and fasces mouldings. Many polished hardwood doors remain with some Egyptian motifs and Medussa and snake brass fittings.

Appraisal

While the original 1800 fabric of this building is difficult to detect, its early twentieth-century extension, façade treatment and interior are of the highest quality, and remain in a good state of repair. Apart from the obvious wealth of detailing to the main building and the extension, the intact coach houses to the rear are of particular importance as they have been lost to the remainder of the terrace. Occupying a prominent corner site in the city centre, this complex is of considerable artistic value including its custom made boundary railings. While this is a modified building, the changes were carried out with great attention to detail, without entirely destroying the original structure and as such add enormous value to the streetscape. This site is marked as Bank of Ireland on the OS 1872 edition of Limerick City.