Survey Data
Reg No
50920013
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural
Previous Name
J.F. Keatinge and Sons originally Rathborne and Company
Original Use
Shop/retail outlet
Historical Use
Apartment/flat (purpose-built)
In Use As
Shop/retail outlet
Date
1860 - 1880
Coordinates
315905, 233651
Date Recorded
22/09/2015
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Attached two-bay four-storey commercial building, remodelled c. 1870 from an earlier building, with recent shopfront spanning ground floor. Hipped slate roof with ridge running perpendicular to street and hidden behind parapet wall with overhanging arcaded red brick crown cornice and moulded granite coping. Profiled brick chimneystacks to north party wall with lipped clay pots to rear (east) stack. Yellow brick walls laid in Flemish bond with moulded red brick quoin strips framing front elevation and moulded red brick stringcourses. Rendered walls to rear (east) elevation. Gauged red and yellow brick segmental-headed window openings, stepped to second floor, with granite sills and uPVC windows. Triple-light pointed headed window opening to first floor with moulded red and yellow brick heads rising from two sandstone columns, flanked by sandstone piers to either end having stiff-leaf capitals. Replacement single-pane glazing with lead-lined sill rising from shopfront. Recent glazed shopfront with masonry surround. Forming part of continuous terrace of commercial buildings lining east side of Grafton Street.
Appraisal
A polychromatic brick and stone building, to the designs of W.M. Mitchell, a remodelling of an earlier building. The builder was S. Robinson of Westland Row. These extensive alterations were carried out for Rathborne and Company, with the premises comprising a shop, cigar divan, billiard rooms and apartments (Dictionary of Irish Architects; Casey). The loss of the original windows and the ground floor detract from the building's otherwise appealing and decorative façade. Retaining the original plot size of the earlier building, this exercise in late Victorian Gothic adds interest to the varied character of the streetscape.