Re: Re: ‘Dutch Billys’
One more point on that ‘Billy’ in Youghal.
A single ‘Dutch Billy’ stands on the corner of North Main Street and a side street running down to the harbour
This stereo glass negative dates to about the 1880s and within about 20 years the ‘Billy’ had been butchered and is virtually unrecognisable in this second view looking the other way, south towards the Clock Gate.
the ‘Billy’ is the two-bay house on the corner of the side street on the left
Just to clarify that point about Chearnley.
If, in the pictures, the rest of the streetscape looked 18th century, you’d be inclined to say that the ‘Billy’ was probably an isolated example, especially since Chearnley’s view doesn’t give any indication of the presence of curvilinear gables in the town, but since the the early photographs seem to show a streetscape dominated by 19th century elevations [or rebuilds], the suspician remains that the earlier 18th century streetscape may well have emulated our solitary ‘Billy’.
The fact that Chearnley view doesn’t capture this is either down to the remote vantage point, from which no part of the Main Street is visible, or down to the fact that he may have been working off a copy of that that earlier view, augmented by some notes on the expansion of the town to the south in particular. The way that the little spit of land is depicted in the foreground and the coincidence of a man standing at a mast [pole/] at the front of a ferry boat in both pictures would be grounds for believing that, in the Chearnley view, we may not be looking at an actual sketch made on site in 1747.
