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 The architectural importance of this slender early twentieth-century building is superseded by its importance as the site of the founding of Conradh na Gaeilge in 1893, and adds to the variety of sites of historic significance in the immediate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.