1860s – Former Roches Stores, Nos 54-62 Henry St., Dublin

Roches Stores was founded in Cork in 1901 by William Roche, and by the latter half of 1927 he had purchased a premises on Henry Street, Dublin formerly known as The Warehouse and continued to expand. Numbers 60-62 were originally constructed to designs of William Fogerty in 1866 as a new drapery mart for Hazelton, Scott & Co., at the corner of Denmark and Henry Streets. Later alterations to the block in the 1930s by Frederick James Macaulay. Eventually the store stretched from Little Denmark Street (now lost to the ILAC Centre) and Cole’s Lane. Demolished in two tranches over the 1960s and early 70s, a large modern store was constructed on the site. Roches Stores occupied the entire block which connected into the ILAC Centre behind. In a piece of upwardly mobile history, the Lord Mayor of Dublin inaugurated Ireland’s first escalator, in Roches Stores’ Dublin branch, on 25 March 1963.