Beresford Place

doubt if said minister could see it properly due to that big suburban garden style tree in the way, Another national treasure like the trees on O’Connell st. and College green…

The PVCs are there quite a few years – but yes, their exposure with the removal of ivy is most unfortunate, whatever about their presence in the first instance. They’re a nasty chunky type too which doesn’t help, not that any manifestation PVC is appropriate here – but considering that PVC still prevails in attic storeys on Merrion Square, its presence in the comparitive backwater of Beresford Place is hardly surprising.

The corner Georgian is looking fantastic after its restoration, it really is the best looking Georgian in the city now – I have a pic of it somewhere to dig out.
And what was particulary impressive about the Luas works here were the curved replica railings that had to be installed in place of the original right-angled ones outside the house – they are perfect in every detail, as is the granite plinth.
And the sashes look so fine now that even the idiot who threw in the PVCs next door muct be kicking themselves.

This terrace must be fully restored, just a pity the Victorians gave the left-hand corner their trademark treatment.

That Stella Maris building is in terrible condition it even has broken windows on the ground floor, who ever owns it should contact me immediately for a discount job.

is that Bond restaurant still there. never thought it fitted in that well.

Sadly, getting rid of PVC windows and fixing the colour of railing paint is practically pointless. This is one you’ve got to let go from an architectural point of view – it’s a lost cause. I can’t see any way back with the ILAC, the elevated loop line and the fact that it’s part of one of the busiest traffic arteries in the city.

Bond is gone and their 100s of types of mineral water with them.

I can’t agree with you on letting this one go jimg.
Beresfort Place forms part of a great cluster of great architecture built over many stages of Dublins development – Liberty Hall, Irish Life Centre (rather than ILAC), Loop Line, Busaras, Phase 1 IFSC (Burke Kennedy-Doyle bit) and of course the customs house. Throw in the Amnesty sculpture and the luas and you really do have a greeat area from an architecture point of view. [There’s acually a sizable area of Dublin here without bad buildings!]

The only downside is of course the traffic but that can be managed. the luas has already impoved to feel of the area and as soon as we get real about limiting car use we’ll have our city back. No point giving up on buildings just ‘cos there’s cars going by – the cars will not always be with us!

A lost cause!?

Sorry I should have been clearer; I read the original message as referring the whole of Beresford place. Of course it’s worth preserving those buildings. Beresford Place in it’s entirety is horrible and fixing railings and installing sash windows will make very little difference to the street. The nice thing about the above picture is that it removes that terrace from its context with the elevated rail lines, the wall of the Irish Life centre (sorry not the ILAC), the dirty end of Busaras and what is effectively a six lane traffic interchange junction.

If ever there was a case where a faithful Georgian reproduction building was justified, it’s No 5 Beresford Place. I don’t know if the Victorian-looking No 5 is a complete replacement or just a refacing of the original building, changing the window opes and ground floor arrangement, but it would certainly be worth a reconstuction to original design and detail.

It’s still a beautiful terrace despite all the negative points jimq mentions about the road in general. The recent restoration of Nos 1 & 2 certainly shows the potential. Both of their brick facades were repointed to a high standard with a fine line of white mortar. Though one slightly irksome point is that, while the new sash windows in No 1 are accurate replicas of the original 1790s sashes, the new windows in No 2 wrongly include sash horns & glazing bars which are slightly too fat. You would think that, since both buildings were having new sash windows fitted at the same time, they would be able to get the details right. But, hey that’s just for obsessives. Also some dodgy mock-Victorian gaslamps & replacement front steps were installed in No 2 – the standard of restoration wasn’t as high as that of No 1.

It’s true that Luas & its pavement-widening effect has improved amenity for the terrace.

Have to say I like Beresford Place for its unusual layout and mixture of architecture. Also largely a fan of the Irish Life Centre, the central block horribly looming over the Custom House aside (and yellowing roof)

It would be great to see Gandon’s terrace fully restored as an entity – on first impressions it would seem the Victorian facade is just that, a facade – you’d wonder why they bothered to change it, and even then a slap of render usually did the job rather than brickwork.
Agreed about the window details, if the other houses are to be restored the co-ordination must be better – or rather sticking to the original design in the first place.
No 1 or 2 looks great now at night with the red walls inside glowing and the Christmas tree with lights positioned just inside the window – all it needs now is some snow to pile up in the corners of the glazing bars 🙂

I remeber seeing a photo of Beresford Place in the fifties before the erection of the present Liberty Hall, there appears a cresent of houses starting at Liberty Hall – which was then cut by the Loopline, the question I have is did the cresent continue to present-day Busaras and the AIB Trade centre?

I have a 1970s photo of Customs House Quay and its almost like a different world…. No IFSC, no Matt Talbot Bridge, Warehouses where the present IFSC House and AIB centre stand…few cars and boats right up to the Customs House. 😮

Busaras was the site of a set of dockside warehouses for a now filled in dock belonging to the Custom House…. Prior to the building of Busaras, the crescent around the Custom House ended at Store Street…

In 1927 The Irish Builder and Engineer had reported a far sighted plan to fill the dock with an underground car park for two hundred cars and placing a new road over it to the quayside.

More information
http://www.irish-architecture.com/busaras/chapter_2.html

I’ve seen some closer-up photos of those stone dockside warehouses – they were very nice. I’d say the curved streetscape views with the dark limestone of the warehouses and the red brick of the Georgian houses were rather good 🙂 . Still, the Beresford Place facade of Bus Aras does at least provide a Georgian-scale Portland stone-clad wall so as to maintain the the line of the Place and respect the Custom Hse & brick houses at Nos. 1-5 materials wise. I suppose that’s why it’s such a great building; it manages to do those things and still be utterly 20th century.

Regarding the continuation of Beresford Pl around to the river, I suppose it was just too irresistable from a traffic-planning point of view not to make a full semi-circle road behind the Custom House and build a new bridge over the river, thus turning the Custom Hse into a traffic island – such was the prevailing climate 🙁 .

Although first planned in 1927 as you say, the continuationof the Place to the river doesn’t seem to have happened til the ’60s.

That end facade of Busáras is one of the best features of the building I think, the stark simplicity and quality of material complements the Custom House so well, and as mentioned continues the parapet line of the houses. Wasn’t there a scupture planned for here?
The other gable wall facing the IFSC is even better though, often ignored but by far my favourite part of the building. The contrast between the clean cut Portland stone of the upper floors and the gently curved brick wall of the ground floor is fantastic, as are the bricks themselves, almost Tudor in shape, and the colour is great.
The wonderful chimney yoke on top is a real givaway as to the building’s age though – Victoria still clinging on 🙂

11/4/2005

Anyone see this new building emerging on Store St next to the Beresford Place Georgians?

It’s a nice link (although the description ‘link’ is undermined by the fact that one of the buildings it links is very good and the other is very crap).

Nice as it is, from this angle it unfortunately looks like it’s just been applied onto the mansard roof crap next door.

I just found this on a banner ad

http://www.beresfordhall.net/english/html/index.htm

A fantastic restoration and the way the mini – conference room facing onto Store St is done is a perfect execution of a relevant use being combined with the best practice conservation principles. 😉

Yes a magnificent job – and you can get a good nose in the conference windows going by too 🙂

One of the finest Georgians in the city now, and in large part thanks to Gandon himself – the architect’s touch here is notable compared to the rest of the city’s townhouse stock.

Passed this way recently and was shocked by the accelerated deterioration of No. 4 Beresford Place it really is starting to look like the elements can get at the interior of this once fine townhouse.

Next door No.5 has acquired some new signage ‘Tutti Fruitee’ which has the most garish colours the exposed aluminium roller shutter also detracts seriously from this protected structure and all this within 30 metres of the Custom House Railings.

It is very true that lower Gardiner Street has seen quite a few of its seedier establishments go upmarket with sensitive refurbs in recent times.

However if these expensive refurbs are to have any impact on the streetscape then signage must be regulated and signs such as Tutti Fruitti will have to go. Has anyone made a comaplaint on this additional undermining of the architectural quality of what is left of Beresford Place?

This is the unvailing of the most recent restoration on Lower Gardnener Street. I think it looks well but I’m not sure about the very whitish mortar used. Is that the way it would have looked when it was just built, was lime mortar that pale ?

That’s extraordinary ConK – surely the first city stock brick townhouses ever to be cleaned?!
Obviously many south Dublin ‘residences’ have been treated, but no inner city townhouses come to mind – incredible to see these as Gardiner first observed over 200 years ago!

What of the conservation implications though – the dark chocolate brown facades are after all part of Dublin now, and pretty rare at that, with most stock buildings in the inner city dating from a brief window around 1790.
And of course these two houses now stand out like sore thumbs in an otherwise sober environment.
Also, cleaning all of Gardiner Street would almost transform the place from grimy Dublin to the butter stone look of Georgian Bath! Is that something we want? It is after all what these buildings are…
Just a shame to see the dark elegant brown disappear, having developed over so many years.

It certainly goes to show how well brick ages in contrast to cut stone – really a great material.

What Stock? What 10 year window in 1790?

The stock brick 🙂 – sandy coloured brick that’s loosely called ‘stock’, presumably after ‘London stock’ from which that whole city and indeed much of Georgian Britain is built. Here it is in the middle:

In spite of being completely dominant in London, it was rarely used in Dublin in the 18th century (though used a lot in side elevations and basic construction), with red being the favoured material right up until 1820, at which point things swung completely in the opposite direction with barely a single red brick being used in the city until 1850, with stock becoming completely dominant for these 30 years. This explains why most of the south inner suburbs dating from the 1830s are of brown stock – Lower Rathmines Rd, along the canal, Mountpleasant Square, Richmond area etc etc.

This is why streets like Gardiner St and Baggot St stand out as early examples of stock brick houses from about 1790-1820 or so, and even more so as they feature full-scale townhouses rather than the more modest houses of Belvedere Place etc. To see your buildings above cleaned from the dark brown to sandy stock is nothing short of a revelation in the inner city – can’t think of anywhere else that this has been done to a terrace. Is this the start of a new trend? All they need now is some grey sashes to blend the old craze with the new one 😉
Pity they forgot the chimneys…

Any progress 12 months on?

@PVC King wrote:

Any progress 12 months on?

There was a tender awarded recently for the public realm/urban design, I presume based on the fact they want to pedestrianise Custom House Quay. If i find out more I will post it up your plasticness.