Re: Re: ‘Dutch Billys’
Sterling work gunter! Glad to see those overblown apartment blocks across the road have their uses ;). Rocque’s map also appears to show the same plot with no return. It is clear the neighbouring house had the exact same roof treatment, with centrally placed rainwater outlet and shared chimneystack. It would appear the Forte house survived intact until the 1950s – next door probably later again 🙁
Cork Street does indeed contain a lot of early ribbon development stock. Further west along the street we encounter this mixumgatherum grouping of houses.
The yellow house is clearly a transitional house of c. 1750-60, with ambitiously scaled windows and a charming double-pile hipped roof.
Nice stairwell window to the rear. No segmental heads suggest the house is a little later than the first third of the 18th century. I do wonder of the opes were enlarged at some point though. The chimney appears to be centrally placed between the front and back rooms but it’s hard to tell.
The railings are nice and simple, as is the granite plinth. No exposed basement windows alas. There may not be a full basement, if any at all.
The two houses next door are very suspect. The diminutive size of the doors relative to the fenestration suggests the houses were aggrandized at some point, and therefore may incorporate early elements. The clustered windows at first floor level just may suggest former gables, but equally it would make sense to simply centre the two windows neatly on the upper floor in the manner that they are.
What really suggests early origins is a single segmental-headed window to the rear. It is also extremely small, perhaps the original size of the front windows?
Taking in the wider view from the side laneway, we can also see that the chimney is located on the back wall at the junction with the neighbouring house, suggesting a corner chimneystack inside. The same can be said of the other house and its abutment to the yellow house, where a corner chimney is evident.
Damage to the corner house exposes the original rubble calp and granite walling. It really shows up the rawness of these houses’ construction, which people are still living in. Nothing but a stack of bound stones rendered over to the outside and inside with a few coats of lime and later cement. Remarkable.
