Survey Data

Reg No

14807063


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Social


Original Use

Shop/retail outlet


In Use As

Shop/retail outlet


Date

1930 - 1950


Coordinates

233878, 224909


Date Recorded

14/10/2004


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

End-of-terrace corner-sited single-bay two-storey shop, built c.1940, with bowed curtain wall to rear. Fronts directly onto street. Flat roof with projecting corner column and stone gable coping. Painted ruled-and-lined wall to first floor with curvilinear addition projecting above north corner. Red brick to ground floor shopfront. First floor window with horizontal panes and patent reveals. Square-headed door opening with replacement timber and glass door to north. Red brick shopfront with timber fascia board and fluted console brackets added. Timber plaques to wall. Fascia board reads: Eye Contact Opticians.

Appraisal

Eye Contact Opticians occupies a very unique structure within Tullamore. Its design reflects mid twentieth-century modernism, incorporating smooth rendered linear features and an attractive asymmetry. End-of-terrace, it terminates a predominantly eighteenth- and nineteenth-century streetscape, making a bold statement that celebrates an alternative style. Each part of its exterior has been thought out. Its first floor is lit by a large window opening with horizontal panes and patent reveals, which is framed by radiating lines that have been incised into the wet render. The building's corner is brought to life by a projecting curvilinear element that reaches above the line of the flat roof. To the rear a bowed curtain wall hides the small extension, giving character to the structure's northern boundary.