Survey Data
Reg No
50010507
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic, Cultural
Previous Name
Henry Smith Ltd
Original Use
Shop/retail outlet
In Use As
Shop/retail outlet
Date
1915 - 1920
Coordinates
315982, 234499
Date Recorded
27/10/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Terraced two-bay five-storey commercial building, rebuilt in 1917, with recent shopfront to ground floor. Flat roof hidden behind red brick parapet wall with masonry coping and squat brick piers. Red brick chimneystack to south party wall with moulded profile. Cast-iron hopper and downpipe to south end. Red brick walls laid in English garden wall bond with channelled granite quoins framing first second and third floors, with granite frieze and modillion cornice over third floor. Shallow brick pilasters framing top floor with granite cornice to base of parapet wall. Square-headed window openings with granite architrave surrounds, granite keystones and sills and original two-over-two pane timber sliding sash windows. Plain granite ashlar frieze over second floor windows with rusticated granite ashlar walls to first floor framing original timber-framed canted oriel window with moulded cornice and timber casement windows resting on continuous granite cornice to ground floor. Recent shopfront is flanked by original granite console brackets. Bronze plaque to shopfront commemorating founding of Conradh na Gaeilge at site.
Appraisal
Rebuilt by the architect Frederick William Higginbotham, the red brick façade of this building is articulated and enlivened by well executed granite detailing, modillion cornice, window surrounds and quoins, which are echoed on the neighbouring building to the north. The architectural importance of this slender early twentieth-century building is superseded by its importance as the site of the founding of Conradh na Gaeilge in 1893, and adds to the variety of sites of historic significance in the immediate vicinity. It was also the architectural office of F.W. Higginbotham.