Survey Data
Reg No
50010410
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Previous Name
Today FM
Original Use
House
In Use As
Studio
Date
1740 - 1760
Coordinates
315580, 234444
Date Recorded
07/12/2011
Date Updated
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Description
Terraced three-bay four-storey house over raised basement, built c.1750, now in use as offices. Single-pitch slate roof, hipped to east, hidden behind parapet wall, with rendered chimneystack. Two cast-iron rainwater hoppers with downpipes, breaking through parapet on south elevation. Painted ruled-and-lined rendered walls to front (south) elevation having granite coping to parapet. Round-headed integral carriage arch to ground floor with block-and-start surround to east on front elevation. Square-headed window openings to third, second, first, ground floor and basement, having rendered and painted reveals and granite sills. Original timber sliding sash windows throughout, three-over-three pane to third floor, six-over-six to second floor, nine-over-six to first floor, eight-over-eight to centre of ground floor, and three-pane window to basement. Carved Portland stone door surround having channelled pilasters supporting entablature of an open pediment on console brackets surrounding round-headed cobweb fanlight. Painted replacement timber ten-panel door having replacement brass door furniture. Six replacement granite steps in Portland stone surround to granite entrance platform having replacement cast-iron railings. Concrete paving having granite kerbing to south of site.
Appraisal
Nos.123, 124 and 125 Upper Abbey Street, formed part of a terrace of mid-eighteenth-century houses remodelled as a radio studio c.2000, now vacant. The houses at Nos.124 and 125 both retain their elegant eighteenth-century proportions. The Georgian style and surviving period fittings are valuable reminders of the former character of this street prior to the construction of a delivery depot at No.123 to the east and the Jervis Shopping Centre to the west. The buildings remain significant elements in the streetscape with the decorative doorcase adding aesthetic interest. The parapet of No.125 is slightly higher than No.124 to east, nearly a storey lower than No.126 to the west, and is dwarfed by the Jervis Centre to the north. Abbey Street Upper is a broad east-west artery, running parallel to the River Liffey to the south. The street owes its origin to the development of the quays in the last quarter of the seventeenth century. Nos.124 and 125 Abbey Street Upper were built as a pair or part of a terrace on 'Little Abb[e]y Street', as identified on Rocque's map of 1756. These houses backed on to Langford House on Mary Street, one of the finest eighteenth-century houses in Dublin.