Re: Re: ‘Dutch Billys’

As it turns out Simon, it is emerging that these triple gabled houses tended to be double gabled to the rear.

We know this from a remarkable survivor in Rathmines which, with its Regency façade, is a doppelganger for your Lady Lane house in Waterford.

22 Lady Lane, Waterford

5-bay house on Summerville Park, Upper Rathmines Road

Despite its superficially Regency appearance, the Rathmines house probably dates to the 1730s and importantly about two thirds of the original roof structure survives behind an altered flat parapet, which, together with the particular window spacing of the façade, reveals that the house was originally one of the series of triple gabled houses built on the outskirts of Dublin that we discussed before. The rear elevation here, and probably in the case of many triple gabled houses, was double gabled with a central dip over the half landing of the stairwell where headroom was not a problem.

a ramped staircase with a square newel post detail featuring engaged half banisters of distinctly hand made appearance would be consistent with a 1730s date

the aerial view from the south shows the steeply pitched pair of roof projections at the rear that originally would have been joined at the ridge by three similar roof projections to the front, linking to the triple curvilinear gabled façade

another view of the rear from the roof of an adjacent apartment block

This is a rough photo-shop of the Rathmines house with its gabled profiles restored and showing the logic of the window spacing as originally set out, but without going to the trouble of removing the Regency render and new doorway.

The plaster wreaths on the present facade exactly match where the rain-water outlets would originally have been and, if we’re very lucky, this may be an indication that the original brick facade survives substantially intact behind the later render with the plaster features added to hide these bumps in the brickwork.