Re: Re: ‘Dutch Billys’

No, I’m really not one of those art history people .. diiferent backround.

Ok just one last point on this twin gable issue. Or a least to elaborate on a previous point:

There are ample photographic records of gabled houses in Dublin, sometimes consciously photographed, sometimes not. In these we can see lots of different treatment and varieties of the gable. Previously unpublished photos have appeared recently showing groups of them in odd places like Mercer Street and Bishop Street. And there are plenty of other sources where the houses are visually evident – prints, engravings. directories, billheads etc. Yet in all of this no trace appears of the twin gable to the two- or three-bay terrace house.

Shaw’s Directory, for example, shows the elevations of hundreds of buildings in the city centre in 1850, including many gabled or altered gabled houses, but nowt a twin gable to be seen. Plenty of Dutch Billys to be seen lurking in the Maltons and other 18th & 19th century topographical prints, but whither the twin gable?

I have difficulty with the claim that they were “common” or “legion” when it’s not clear they existed at all. We can speculate to great lengths on those existing funny little roofs at Thomas Street, James Street, Cork Street, and others in old photos, but at end of the day, the absence of pictorial proof of even one example of a twin gable on a modest house is the elephant in the room.

And let’s remember above all that disagreement is good for the forum!!