Dublin Historic Stone Paving disbelief

[Lotts]

Could be just to make you slip on your bike on a frosty morning

[Devin]

Here is an example of what was mentioned earlier about the piecemeal, haphazard replacement of antique golden kerbstones with modern white granite that you see on so many city centre streets. The example street is Lower Leeson Street - the east side - from the Grand Canal down to St. Stephen’s Green:






So, starting at the top, antique kerbs are present & correct.







Down to the junction with Pembroke Street - fine so far …







Then here we go - far side of the Pembroke Street junction and the white granite kerbs begin …







50 paces later, across a laneway, and it’s back into the antique kerbs …







Another little bit on and the white granite begins again, this time a lengthy stretch …







Finally, just before reaching St. Stephen’s Green, you cross a laneway and the last little bit to the Green still has the original kerbs.


Can you imagine seeing this in Paris, or even London?

[GrahamH]

Certainly more unity is required, though to be honest I'm surprised they even bothered to go with white granite kerbs of the same broad width - they're not particularly common in the city on that scale, so at least they went to the effort.
But if they're aware that they need kerbs of that width on the street, they they also know damn well that it's antique granite that should be used along here, and that's just presuming it wasn't the latter they were replacing!

At least the white granite looks well, but it's absolutely no excuse for a disjoined paving scheme, nor the replacement of priceless rust-tinged Irish kerbstones.

As an aside, I was looking at those very concrete lampposts on Leeson St the other day, wondering how long they'll last. Will we give them a year to be replaced with silver repro muck?

[Devin]

Well, they're at it again. Dublin City Council's Roads Maintenance Division have just done their dirty raised cement pointing on the listed antique paving on the west side of Temple Lane, from Curved Street up to Dame Street.






And now they've moved on to the other side of the street. Here is their handiwork from this afternoon.

I am not having a go at Fas – they do a lot of good work. But, as Greg said earlier, that’s the metaphor which sums it up best: the Fas trainees being let loose unsupervised on the valuable antique pavments.

This is bloody awful. These pavements were fought for back when Temple Bar was being developed, only to have them smeared with cement in 2006. You'd think we'd have come further. Pointing is supposed to be secondary to stonework.

[publicrealm]

I am not having a go at Fas – they do a lot of good work. But, as Greg said earlier, that’s the metaphor which sums it up best: the Fas trainees being let loose unsupervised on the valuable antique pavments.

This is bloody awful. You'd think we'd have come further. Pointing is supposed to be secondary to stonework.

I suspect that that battle is lost. I agree it's awful.

This lunchtime I took the attached pics (camera phone) - unbelievably they show repointing of the main entrance steps to Powerscourt Town House.

Maybe these are in private ownership - but the destruction wrought in public areas (in the name of DCC) is completely inexcusable.

[tommyt]

This probably sounds preposterous but I have noticed posters mentioning that this white granite is permeable. Would anyone think it possible to artificiallypatinate/colour this stone in some sort of a bath of humic/tannic acid?. Could we leave batches of this awfully bland stone in monstrous vats of stewed tea!
This granite also seems very liable to chipping. A good place to observe this is the section of Talbot st. from Marlbourough place to the junction at nth Earl St. One side of the street is old stone, still in great nick, whilst the West side of the street is the new stuff that is already in rag order, chipped and stained beyond redemption by the looks of it.

[Devin]

This granite also seems very liable to chipping. A good place to observe this is the section of Talbot st. from Marlbourough place to the junction at nth Earl St. One side of the street is old stone, still in great nick, whilst the West side of the street is the new stuff that is already in rag order, chipped and stained beyond redemption by the looks of it.

Parts of Smithfield are in bits too after only about 5 years.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The correct pointing to antique paving should look something like this; a delicate tracery of whitish mortar between the stones, allowing the quality of the stonework to dominate.

Stone masonry is a craft. Repair and alteration to historic paving is a highly skilled operation. But Fas trainees are doing it in Dublin city centre. It is shocking.

[StephenC]

HAve you been on to the Heritage Officer at DCC Devin? Perhaps they have an opinion on whats happening.

[GrahamH]

It's bad enough that Dublin's most important pavements are being used as a training ground for tradespeople, but the real shocking factor is not this - rather it's the fact that this is how they're being trained to do it!
It beggars belief if the case.

[Devin]

Stephen, yes, they're aware of the problem. They know that practice for protected stone paving needs to be brought into line with practice for protected buildings. Resources need to be allocated for it ...... this is the big step.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As work approaches completion on the new plaza beside City Hall, a large section the historic granite paving running along the Dame Street edge has been lifted (above). It will need to be put down again in accordance with best conservation practice – observing the coursing and bonding integrity of stone paving, and neatly pointed in the recommended flush or slightly sunken finish.

The Council’s recent record in this respect is not good. But this is not a side street like Temple Lane or St. Patrick’s Close where you might get away with a bit of nasty work. You’re in the full glare of Dame Street now, DCC Roads Maintenance.

An email has been sent to the Council in advance so there’s no excuse.

[wrafter]

This is what they're doing in Barcelona's Placa Cathedral. I spotted this last night as I walked through. Red X represents replacement req'd.

[Morlan]

Ah sure a lick of tarmac would patch those up reall nice.

[Seanselon]

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So you think conservation standards are low in Dublin, huih?? Look at what was allowed on the steps of Galway Court House

[Devin]

Uugh! Irish workmen are obsessed with cement ... trowel it on ... the more the better. Fine jointing is a foreign concept.

[kite]

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So you think conservation standards are low in Dublin, huih?? Look at what was allowed on the steps of Galway Court House

Even the hound looks depressed at this wanton act of vandalism.
I would love to post photographs (can’t figure how to do it yet) of the historic paving outside Cork City Hall being ripped up and dumped to allow for cheap, glassy, Spanish or Chinese slabs laid to match the junk laid in Patrick Street at the behest of our City Manager, Joe Gavin (remember him Galway?)

[Seanselon]

Yeah, I remember him:-( I reckon The Courts Service are at least partly to blame as well though...

[Devin]

The message seems to have gotten through. The Dame Street paving is being put down again and pointed in a - wait for it - slightly sunken finish!






And while you’re working on this stretch of paving DCC, you could take the opportunity to undo some earlier horror-alterations, like this dish at the Palace Street corner, where the historic paving fabric was simply cut away to make room for new white granite.

If you sourced stones of appropriate shape and dimension from your paving depot on Marrowbone Lane, you could restore the integrity of the pavement here. How about it, huh?

[GrahamH]

Absolutely.

What an ugly, bog standard drainage channel cover - could something more elegant and befitting of this location not be concocted?
It also highlights how striking this curve would be if executed as a lighting strip, marking out the plaza area at night and neatly merging old and new. A little more innovation is in order,

[Devin]

Just when you thought everything was going well with the works to the historic perimeter paving at the new plaza, they seem have run short of original granite and the last 12 feet or so at the City Hall end is being re-laid in non-matching white granite. Brilliant!

If they ran short, why can't historic granite be got to finish it properly? They have taken up vast quantities of this granite from all over the city in the past 20 years. They used to have a huge mound of it piled up in their Marrowbone Lane paving depot. Why must things always be like this in Dublin?

Or maybe it's being done deliberately, to be consistent with the paving inconsistency that you see so much around the city?

[GrahamH]

Oh no - so near yet so far, and right at the City Hall junction
Surely they have tons of original granite in storage!

The bollards are fancy, but are they needed? I thought it was DCC policy, or should that be best practice, to limit the alterations, i.e incisions, to original paving? In all fairness, if you're walking along the kerbline with that vast extent of paving to walk on, you deserve to be clipped by a bus.

I note your image is sideways Devin - I presume your tourist camera just happened to accidentally take a picture next to the workmen while 'testing' it? Funny that, mine does the exact same for some reason.

[Rory W]

The bollards are fancy, but are they needed? I thought it was DCC policy, or should that be best practice, to limit the alterations, i.e incisions, to original paving? In all fairness, if you're walking along the kerbline with that vast extent of paving to walk on, you deserve to be clipped by a bus.

Aimed more at drivers pulling up "for just a few minutes" I'd wager - give it 5 minutes it'd be full of white van men cracking the newly laid/restored surface

[GregF]

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So you think conservation standards are low in Dublin, huih?? Look at what was allowed on the steps of Galway Court House

Jesus , that pointing job is an utter disgrace! The work of a ham fisted idiot!

[GregF]

[quote="Devin"]Parts of Smithfield are in bits too after only about 5 years.

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The correct pointing to antique paving should look something like this]


Great that you hilighted this problem Devin of how it should and should'nt be done.

[hutton]

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So you think conservation standards are low in Dublin, huih?? Look at what was allowed on the steps of Galway Court House

I too am only after noticing this... Desperate.

This should win some kind of award as to how not to do it - it really is the worst yet

[ctesiphon]

The bollards are fancy, but are they needed? I thought it was DCC policy, or should that be best practice, to limit the alterations, i.e incisions, to original paving? In all fairness, if you're walking along the kerbline with that vast extent of paving to walk on, you deserve to be clipped by a bus.

Slightly off-topic, perhaps, but I wanted to highlight this nevertheless.

I've been mulling over this comment for the last couple of days, Graham, and I still can't figure out whether you were being facetious or serious when you said pedestrians deserved to be hit by the bus if they walked too close to the edge. Usually, you'd put a smiley beside it to signify the gag, but there's none. Equally, this isn't the kind of comment I'd expect from you. Hence the query.

Speaking as a daily pedestrian, as someone who has been hit by the wing mirror of a bus on Clare Street as I was walking along the kerb (in the same direction as the bus, so I was hit from behind on the back of the head), and as someone who has a professional interest in pedestrian planning in Dublin, I disagree strongly with your statement.
This is the footpath, which is the designated area for walking. The walking area extends to the edge of the kerb. Period. No debate. Etc.
There is no law against walking on any part of the footpath (unless it's an off-road cycle lane- a separate matter entirely). And there are no bonus points in life for walking further away from the carriageway.
If a bus hits a pedestrian who is walking on the footpath, the bus is automatically, a priori at fault- the implication being that the bus was too close to the pedestrians, which constitutes dangerous driving.
And (quite tenuous, I know) buses on this stretch of Dame Street should be leaving room for bikes on the inside.
Lastly (even more tenuous, perhaps), if someone walks down the middle of the road, drivers don't have the right simply to run them over on the grounds that they were walking where they shouldn't. Oh I've been tempted alright, such as when joggers take up the full width of the bike lane, to give them a fright, but I know that it's not allowed. Simple as that.

I too have an issue with the bollards, but it's more to do with their safety re cycling (in addition to their conservation implications). Many bollards and footpath guardrails in town are too close to the edge of the footpath and as a result jeapordise cyclists- one clip of the handlebar and you can say goodnight. One might argue that, if buses should move out from the kerb (as I advocated) then cyclists should too, but that ignores the provisions re cycle tracks and the safety of cyclists who aren't in lanes where provided- I have too many examples of drivers trying to 'educate' me on where I should be riding, using their vehicles as teaching aids.

If I've misunderstood, sorry for the rant.