Reg No
50010150
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Original Use
House
In Use As
Guest house/b&b
Date
1820 - 1830
Coordinates
316316, 234768
Date Recorded
16/10/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Terraced two-bay four-storey house over raised basement, built c.1825, now in use as guesthouse. M-profile pitched slate roof with shared brick chimneystack, rendered parapet with squared granite coping and stucco block detailing concealing gutters to front (west) elevation. Rendered walls throughout having channelled render quoin bands and granite plinth to front elevation. Diminishing square-headed window openings, having moulded rendered reveals and granite sills throughout, moulded render surrounds and recent wrought-iron window boxes to front elevation openings. Historic replacement timber sliding sash windows throughout having three-over-three pane arrangements to third floor, eight-over-eight pane to basement and six-over-six pane elsewhere. Recent steel window guard to basement opening. Replacement uPVC windows to rear (east) elevation openings with exception of round-headed multiple-pane timber-framed sliding sash stairwell window. Three-centred-arch door opening with moulded rendered reveals to painted stucco doorcase comprising engaged fluted Ionic columns surmounted by panel moulded entablature with laurel motif, cornice and single-pane fanlight. Timber panelled door opening onto shared granite flagged platform with round-nosed stepped approach bridging basement area. Approach flanked by wrought and cast-iron spearheaded railings on granite plinths, returning to enclose basement area. Square-headed door opening to basement area having recent glazed timber door.
This pleasantly appointed house is one of a long terrace of largely intact Georgian houses stretching from the Loop Line Bridge to Talbot Street. Located towards the northern end, this is the only house that has been rendered with stucco detailing which was most likely a later Victorian modification and as such it stands apart from its neighbours while still maintaining the overall rhythm of the streetscape. Stucco details, highlighted window surrounds and a pleasant doorcase give the building a pleasing aspect and somewhat delicate character. This street laid out in the 1790s by Luke Gardiner as part of a planned route which linked the new symbol of the mercantile power base, the Custom House with Mountjoy Square, Gardiner's planned upper-class residential development on an elevated site to the north. The houses on Gardiner Street Middle and Lower formed a vista focused on the rear portico of the Custom House, though later disrupted by the installation (1888-89) of the raised Loop Line Bridge to this end of Gardiner Street.