Survey Data

Reg No

50910256


Rating

Regional


Categories of Special Interest

Architectural, Artistic


Original Use

Shop/retail outlet


In Use As

Shop/retail outlet


Date

1875 - 1880


Coordinates

315580, 234018


Date Recorded

25/11/2015


Date Updated

--/--/--


Description

Terraced five-storey gabled commercial building over basement, erected 1879, having three bays to middle floors, two bays to top floor, and shopfront to ground floor. One of four similar buildings. Pitched natural slate roof, with parapet gutter to north, red clay roll-top ridge tiles, splayed granite verge copings to east gable, gablets over top floor openings with vents and stone copings, and chevron moulding to stone parapet coping with foliate stops. Red brick chimneystack to west, with triangular projections to north and south sides, granite plinth, brick corbelled cap with granite coping, and yellow clay pots. Cast-iron downpipe to east. Red brick Flemish bond walling, having brick pilasters to ends of elevation with gabled limestone tops, limestone bands to sill level of dormer gables and to imposts of first floor and top two floors. Second and third floor windows set within double-height recesses. Roll-moulded reveals to all openings, moulded and carved stone sill courses to first, second and fourth floors. All window openings recessed, with splayed brick reveals, openings to middle floors separated by pilasters. Third floor openings have shouldered pointed segmental heads, other openings are square-headed, with quadrant corners to first and second floors, continuous moulded stone label to first floor and continuous pointed segmental hood-moulding to third floor, with foliate stops. Alternating brick and stone voussoirs to relieving arches over first, third and fourth floor openings. Timber windows, comprising two vertical casements with horizontal opening light. Original painted timber shopfront, with moulded details to mullions and transoms, much altered in upper panels and stall-riser, limestone octagonal-plan engaged flanking columns on square bases with foliate capitals and surmounted by projecting carved consoles carrying first floor sill and gryphons on moulded plinths. Planar glass shopfront of c. 2013 with modern fascia over. Mosaic flooring to entrance lobby with decorative margin, and timber panelled inner door screen.

Appraisal

One of a distinctive, unified group of four buildings attributed by Casey (2005) to J.J. O’Callaghan and making a substantial contribution to the scale and quality of the south side of Dame Street. It exhibits brick and stone detailing and carving typical of the late nineteenth/early twentieth-century period of rapid redevelopment in this part of Dublin, that resulted in replacement of much of the rebuilding work on the south side that had been instigated by the Wide Street Commissioners in the eighteenth century. The building heights were generally maintained, as was the wide-street vista eastwards to Trinity College. Portions of the original shopfront survive, including mosaic flooring at the entrance. The variety of window openings and the varied plan of the upper floors provides visual interest.