Survey Data
Reg No
50010269
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Previous Name
Cummins and Sons
Original Use
Shop/retail outlet
In Use As
Shop/retail outlet
Date
1780 - 1800
Coordinates
316091, 234570
Date Recorded
30/11/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Corner-sited four-storey single-bay commercial building, built c.1790, having four-bay return. Pitched slate roof, set perpendicular to Abbey Street, with pitched return to east. Rendered chimneystacks having clay pots, hidden behind rendered parapet with masonry coping. Cast-iron rainwater goods to west elevation. Ruled-and-lined rendered walls having masonry block-and-start quoins, clamp-kilned brick in Flemish garden wall bond to west elevation. Painted signs to upper floors east and south elevations. Square-headed window openings with masonry sills and timber sliding sash windows, eight-over-four pane and six-over-three to third floor, six-over-six and eight-over-eight pane to second floor, and two-over-two pane to first floor. Rendered shopfront to ground floor comprising render fascia having moulded architrave, supported on masonry pilasters flanking square-headed window opening with fixed-pane display windows over rendered stall riser to west. Round and square-headed window openings to south elevation having plate-glass windows with louvered vents over, and with rendered risers. Square-headed door opening to south elevation flanked by channelled polished granite pilasters, having segmental-headed opening with double-leaf glazed timber panelled door, glazed fanlight, sidelights, and timber panel over. Timber fascia over. Square headed door opening to east of shopfront. Some timber panelled shutters to windows visible to interior.
Appraisal
This building, retaining much of its early form and fabric, including a variety of timber sash windows with shutters, forms an important part of the architectural identity of these streets. Painted signs to each elevation point to an early commercial function and provide a context for the building as well as commemorating the strong commercial history of the area. Abbey Street Lower, formerly known as "Ships Buildings", was realigned by the Wide Streets Commissioners in the 1740s and thereafter became an important mercantile zone. This building, which survived the destruction wrought by the 1916 uprising, reflects some of the earlier surviving architecture of the area, providing a contrast to the early twentieth-century buildings which today dominate much of the area around O'Connell Street.