Re: Re: South Great George’s Street

No. 6 Aungier Street is an extremely important house for a couple of reasons.

It was built by Nicholas Carter in late 1724 / early 1725 on the site of an earlier house built as part of the first phase of the Aungier Estate development in the 1660s.

Although later alterations disguised its gabled house origins and made it look like a pair with no. 5, it was actually built by Carter as a pair with no. 7, which has since been completely rebuilt. Carter was a bricklayer by trade, a Quaker, and a significant property developer in his time. Carter is one of the men who shaped the gabled tradition, building houses [usually in pairs] throughout Dublin including on College Green, College Street, Carter’s Lane, Dame Street, Cecilia Street etc. This house on Aungier Street, even in its gutted form, is one of only a handful of his structures that survive in any shape or form.

At the very least, the renovation of houses like no. 6 Aungier Street must be preceded by a detailed investigation of its origins. Too much irreplaceable early material is being lost on a daily basis through a lack of very basic research.

5 & 6 Aungier Street in 2009

a 1960s view of 5 & 6 [posted earlier by exene] showing how the facades of the two houses had been altered to reflect the joining of the two properties into a single commercial premises

an aerial view from the 1950s that shows that no. 5 was a deeper house than no. 6 and it had conventional mid-wall chimney stacks, but that nos. 6 & 7 were a pair, as indicated in the lease records, each having a single chimney stack that betrays the presence of corner fireplaces, even though the original cruciform roof structures to both Carter houses had been replaced by standard early 19th century double pile lateral roofs