Survey Data
Reg No
50080606
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social
Previous Name
Frawley's Department Store
Original Use
House
In Use As
Shop/retail outlet
Date
1700 - 1740
Coordinates
314601, 233862
Date Recorded
04/11/2013
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached five-bay three-storey former house, built c.1720, renovated, reroofed, refenestrated and refaced c.1930, having shopfront to front (north) elevation. Flat roof, hidden behind rendered parapet, with moulded render cornice and fascia to base of parapet. Lined-and-ruled rendered walls, having rendered piers to sides of façade. Square-headed window openings with painted masonry sills, render keystones and one-over-one pane timber sash windows. Tiled walls to shopfront, timber fascia over, square-headed openings having timber fasciae and steel roller shutters. Square-headed door opening to centre, with timber panelled door and overlight.
Appraisal
Dublin Civic Trust, in the 'Survey of Gable-Fronted House and Other Early Buildings of Dublin City' 2012, states 'No.36 Thomas Street is one of the most important houses surviving in the city, being one of the last substantial mansion houses of its period and at one point probably the most prestigious house on Thomas Street. The building was probably constructed c.1715 as the town residence and commercial premises of the wealthy banker, Joseph Fade. It is a large city mansion of the early classical type, with a carefully arranged formal façade of tall narrow windows fronting the street and a symmetrical arrangement of rooms to the interior. Rocque’s map of 1756 indicates that the line of the Glib Market was broken along the pavement on Thomas Street to facilitate the mansion’s expansive frontage, while a large planted garden was laid out to the rear. Although the building has lost its original roof profile - likely to be steeply pitched originally with a substantial brick parapet in front - the substantial superstructure of the building remains intact and is a highly important survivor in the city.' Frawley’s Department Store traded on Thomas Street from 1891, incorporating Nos.34-35, first, and subsequently no.36, before closing in 2008. It was reconstructed by Bergin & Butler in 1937.