1868 – Crown Life Assurance Co., Dame Street, Dublin

Designed by Sir Thomas Newenham Deane in 1868 and modeled on the London head office of Crown Life, which was designed in 1858 by his former partner Benjamin Woodward. Lombardo-Romanesque in style, its best feature are the stepped round-headed windows on the staircase on the Fownes Street facade. It was almost lost to Dublin except it was recommended by Skidmore Owings Merrill as one of two buildings worth saving in Temple Bar, when they submitted their masterplan for the area to CIE in the 1970s. Now renovated and part of an hotel.

“Like many of the public buildings of Dublin, the masonry of the Crown Office is constructed of Portland stone, which has been found to be well adapted for the climate. Particular care had to be taken with the foundations. It would appear that on each side of the river Liffey in Dublin there is an area which may be described as being contrary to the ordinary nature of things in its section. Instead, as is usually the case, of having the soft ground above the gravel, the gravel overlies a deep bed of mud. This, no doubt, is owing to some change in the river-bed, but at any rate it involves great risk in building. As evidence of this we may say that some few years since a very extensive goods store was erected for one of the railway companies on the north bank of the river, but when nearly complete it had to be taken down owing to settlements in the foundation. In this case much caution was used in testing the foundation beforehand, and for a sufficient depth nothing but hard gravel was discovered. The weight of the goods store was, however, sufficient to act upon the stratum of mud, and with disastrous consequences. When the old houses which occupied the site of the Crown Fire Office were taken down, somewhat similar circumstances presented themselves. There was a crust of gravel, but beneath it was soft mud of such a depth (in part it was 26 feet deep) as to make it impossible at a reasonable cost to bring the foundations up from the rock below. The plan adopted by the architect was as follows:– Trenches 4 feet deep and 5 feet wide were excavated in the gravel, and kept dry by a pump working in the centre of the site; they were then filled up with cement concrete, Long scantlings of timber, halved, were laid on each other, and placed round the sides of the site, on which large flat stones were laid, and on this platform the superstructure was raised. So well did this plan answer that there has not been the slightest flaw or shake in the work. The builders were Messrs. Cockburn & Sons, of Great Brunswick Street, and the architect was Mr. Thomas N. Deane, R.H.A.” The Architect, January 4 1873