Survey Data

Reg No

50100413


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Artistic


Original Use

House


In Use As

Office


Date

1785 - 1795


Coordinates

316580, 233490


Date Recorded

03/07/2016


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Attached three-bay four-storey former house over basement, built c. 1790, having bow to western two bays of rear and two-storey addition to third bay. Now in use as offices. Pitched slate roof to front, hipped to east end, behind brick parapet with granite coping, and two hipped roofs to rear perpendicular to street, larger to bow. Brick chimneystack to west with clay pots. Cast-iron rainwater goods to rear elevation. Partly Mansard roof and partly hipped slate roof to addition. Flemish bond red brick walls to front elevation on granite plinth course over painted rendered walls to basement; yellow brick walls to rear. Square-headed window openings, diminishing in height to upper floors, with rendered reveals and painted granite sills; carved granite block-and-start surrounds with wrought-iron grilles to basement. Replacement timber sliding sash windows to front elevation, three-over-three pane to top floor and one-over-one pane elsewhere; rear having older timber sash windows, bow having three-over-three pane to top floor, six-over-six pane to second floor and nine-over-six pane to first floor, and third bay having replacement windows. Elliptical-headed principal doorway has rendered linings, fluted frieze and cornice, engaged Ionic columns with respond pilasters framing decorative leaded sidelights, petal fanlight and ten-panel timber door with brass furniture. Granite platform with five bull-nosed granite steps. Wrought-iron railings enclosing basement area with decorative cast-iron posts on carved granite plinth. Cast-iron coal-hole covers set in granite flags to footpath. Recent two-bay two-storey building on site of former mews house to Fitzwilliam Lane. carparking to rear.

Appraisal

No. 77 Merrion Square is an elegant Georgian house that forms part of the eighteenth-century square developed by the Fitzwilliam Estate. It has a fine Ionic doorcase with delicate decorative leaded sidelights and an elaborate fanlight, adding artistic detailing to the otherwise restrained façade. The railings also provide visual and craft interest. The building and its intact setting details contribute significantly to the intact appearance of this internationally important architectural set-piece. The square is one of the best-preserved Georgian streetscapes in Ireland. The north, east and south sides are lined with terraced houses of eighteenth and early nineteenth-century date, while the west side is terminated by the garden front of Leinster House. The houses maintain a relatively uniform building height and design, attributed to standards promoted in Fitzwilliam's leases. Individuality was introduced through the design of doorcases, window ironwork and interior decorative schemes. The south side of Merrion Square was initially set in large plots of twelve leases; plots were leased consecutively from east to west up until the row was completed in 1791.