Re: Re: ‘Dutch Billys’

@Devin wrote:

. . . . it’s conjecture to declare it to have been twin gable-fronted on the basis of those two historic drawn depictions you show.

. . . . for one, in order for pediments to have been in proportion to those curves at each side of the parapet as drawn in the Atkinson billhead, there is scarcely room for two pediments, let alone two more inner curves (and twin curvilinear pedimented gables are even less plausible on the building as drawn in the Bartlett print).

@GrahamH wrote:

Agreed with Devin in this case that a pair of gables would be extremely tight, but still, not without the bounds of the vernacular. We must also remember that this is an artist’s impression – not a photograph. An accurate, scaled depiction of former gabled outlines was unlikely to be a top priority… In fact, the pitch of the double-pile roofs probably couldn’t manage that arrangement in reality.

The proportions in the print may not be completely accurate and the roof ridges [that are a stand out feature of the ’50s photographs] are not depicted, but even if we work with the proportions of the front elevation as drawn and etched, a pair of twin gables to match those on the pair of houses at the New Row South corner with Ward’s Hill, would fit quite well. I’ve taken the liberty of marking in such pediments on a copy of the print below.

19th century photograph of the twin gabled pair of houses at the corner of New Row South and Ward’s Hill. Again I’ve marked up the detail where it had clearly been eroded or out of shot.

At the risk of re-igniting this row again,‘twin-Billys’ fall into two categories: [1] close-coupled examples like these above where the centre curve between the pediments is not in proportion to the much bigger sweeping curves on the outside, and, [2] evenly spaced examples where the side roofs don’t sweep down lower than the inner roofs to the centre valley, and presumably therefore the linking curves more or less match.

It’s the latter type [like no. 35 Usher’s Quay, 32 Thomas Street, 120 Cork Street among others] that we’re having the difficulty finding corroborating images of, but as we’ve said before, the consistency in roof design is pretty compelling, I would have thought.