Survey Data
Reg No
50100608
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Artistic
Original Use
House
In Use As
Office
Date
1800 - 1860
Coordinates
316850, 233340
Date Recorded
20/06/2016
Date Updated
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Description
Attached two-bay four-storey former house over basement, built c. 1830 as one of terrace of three (Nos. 52-54), having two-storey rear return. Now in use as offices. M-profile pitched slate roof, having brick parapet with granite coping and parapet gutters, cornice and platband. Shouldered red brick chimneystacks with octagonal clay pots. Flemish bond red brick walling to upper floors, rusticated granite walling to ground floor with projecting moulded granite sill course above and projecting masonry course below, over painted tool-faced coursed limestone basement walls; brick to rear. Square-headed window openings, diminishing in height to upper floors, with patent reveals and painted masonry sills, and having granite surrounds to basement and ground floors. Timber sliding sash windows, front elevation having one-over-one pane to ground and first floors with ogee horns, six-over-six pane to second floor and six-over-three pane to top floor with convex horns, and ten-over-ten pane to basement; rear elevation has three-over-three pane window to top floor and six-over-six pane to middle floors, tripartite to first floor. Front elevation has ornate cast-iron balcony spanning first floor windows, and wrought-iron grille to basement window. Round-headed doorcase with moulded reveals, pro-style columns with Ionic capitals, plain entablature, batwing fanlight and four-panel timber door with beaded muntin and replacement brass furniture. Shared granite entrance platform with decorative cast-iron boot-scrape and five bull-nosed steps to street. Decorative spear-headed cast-iron railings on moulded granite plinth enclosing basement area, with cast-iron gate and mild steel steps leading to basement. Plain square-headed door opening beneath entrance platform. Cast-iron coal-hole to pavement. Double-pile rubble stone mews building to rear of plot, rubble limestone boundary wall to lane with brick coping and cornice and vehicular gate to square-headed opening.
Appraisal
A late Georgian house forming part of a unified terrace of three comprising Nos. 52-54. It is well retained and has the rusticated granite stone ground floor of houses on this stretch of the street, a fine Ionic doorcase with a good fanlight, and ornate metalwork to its full-width balcony and railings. The intact setting enhances the building and contributes to the intactness of the streetscape. Laid out in the 1780s and principally developed by a Mr Osburne and David Courtney, although the building leases for nos. 53 and 54 were taken by the builders Arthur Williams and Gilbert Cockburne. The street was built to link the newly constructed Grand Canal to the upper-class residential developments radiating from Leinster House. Built in pairs and rows over a period of thirty years, the fifty-four houses on the street were completed by 1834. Variations within the street, such as differences in parapet heights, are a telling feature of its piecemeal development, with the south side notably grander than the north, boasting granite rustication across much of the ground floor level. The street is terminated by St. Stephen's Church at the east end, transforming what is a typical and relatively modest late Georgian street into an urban set-piece, forming part of a key vista of Georgian Dublin.