How well do you know Dublin?
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I actually felt guilty Graham when I looked back at your TCD door, you had pointed out that that photo wasn’t from a park, this one is, or, at least, something that is similar to a park. I have no idea what is through the door, though I suspect it might be a secret command centre from which northside will be run when the bridges are blown.
Oh well done: Botanic Gardens round behind the Lily House, currently closed, undergoing or maybe pending, renovation, picture here:
What is it though? The structure above the stairwell seemed to be a water pump of some kind, could it be a pumping house for the river water?
OK, this is not going to be easy, and I can’t give clues because I don’t know the answer!
Where could this be?
It was originally suggested to be the south side of Newmarket, with the side street visable on the right being Mill Lane, (the narrow street that runs down to no. 10 Mill Street), but it can’t be, because the shadows tell us that the photograph was taken sometime around midday, so the buildings must face south, or maybe east or west, but certainly not north.
The house on the left is a paired-down ‘Dutch Billy’, so we’re talking not much later than the 1750s at the latest, and it looks like it could be one of a pair with it’s neighbour, out of view to the left.
The white house is a standard 19th century vernacular structure which suggests a slightly more edge of town location. They’re found everwhere from Arbour Hill to the Liberties and places like Harold’s Cross Road, but they were also found closer in, in places such as the back of Hill Street and Wood Lane off Hendrick Street.
I feel that the best clue is going to be that wide set-back beyond the path, that rules out a lot of streets.
Obviously there’ll be bonus points for anyone who can name the kid with the kite.
P.S. being a lantern slide, there’s also a possibility that the picture is backwards!
well jaysus if you don’t know how the frack are we supposed to get it? 😉
and the kid is Eamonn Dunphy fresh from kickin a ball o rags around the Gloucester diamond. The chap leaning on the corner is Bill Cullen while that’s Ronnie Drew walking past Eamo.
Rare oul’ times indeed…..
Ahhhh me oul seogossiahs, the dear an’darlin’ chiseller wit his britches up in his oxters and the beeeeeeeeeeeeeuuuuuuuuuuuuuuutifull whoite wash. Is it Church st. and general environs ?? the big gable end on the right makes me thinkof Bow st. for some reason. In any event is it a street that has seen signficant rearrangement in the early photograohic era?
In the words of the great Matador record label, ‘All rights reserved, all wrongs reversed.’
No idea on the location- el swanko seems pretty certain, though.
Time to get your Roques out for the lads, gunter? 😉
@el swanko wrote:
The slide is backwards and its Marrowbone Lane.
I like the idea of Marrowbone Lane, but I can’t get a group to match exactly on the map. Also I’m not convinced that the slide is backwards . . . . if you factor in kite flying and prevailing winds and all of that!
@ctesiphon wrote:
Time to get your Roques out for the lads, gunter? 😉
We might use this great recent 1847 O.S. reprint this time . . . *without the knowledge or consent of the Royal Irish Academy*
@tommyt wrote:
Is it Church st. and general environs ?? the big gable end on the right makes me thinkof Bow st.
Checking them out, but generally pretty narrow streets around there, not much scope for wide paths of set-backs!
The buildings look like they were built/set back after the footpath was formed, and the block immediately north of the Scavenging Depot also looks like it was set back to accomodate widening. Doesnt explain why the buldings to the left have blank east walls, but perhaps these were accesed from the courtyard on their western side.
@gunter wrote:
*without the knowledge or consent of the Royal Irish Academy*
*cough*
A closer view of the junction of Robert[ss] Street and Marrowbone Lane (the same spot mentioned by goneill) from Rocque- tellingly, there seems to be a kerb line forward of the building line that doesn’t show up in the 1847 map.
Are we getting warm?
Curiouser and curiouser…
On seing that 1876 image, my heart sank a bit initially, as the footprint of the end house seems to break the building line as in the Rocque, but the white house in the image above is flush- and presumably it pre-dates 1876. But looking more closely, it seems that the hatched area – indicating the building footprint – is flush with the building line, whilst the ‘breakfront’ seems to be a shadow of the previous building.
Drifting towards consensus can be dangerous, but I’m starting to believe we might be onto something.
@StephenC wrote:
Nerd alert! 🙂
You’re just jealous, admit it! 🙂
Still can’t get any site on Marrowbone Lane to work, I think there are buildings on that Robert Street corner that don’t match!
I thought I had it earlier with this site on present day Benburb Street, with the H. Mathew’s Pub being the structure in the distance, and the laneway being Hendrick Lane.
It’s a south facing terrace and Benburb St. (Barrack St./Tighe St.) was a comparatively wide street for the traffic it supported and the location of the returns on the probable ‘Billys’ equate with the door locations perfectly. Surviving houses are all three storey, remodelled or rebuilt Billys, and the two storey vernacular is just around the corner from a little cluster of similar houses at Hendrick Place, but the pitch on the pub roof is a couple of degrees too low and the chimney stacks don’t match.
I even had it figured that it must be Sunday morning and the pedestrian rush up the lane was to church service at the local Methodist Church on Blackhall Place.
Have to start again!
@StephenC wrote:
Nerd alert!
:confused:
I thought it would be handy to put them both here again.
gunter- have you given up on the Benburb Hypothesis? If not, how would you explain the advanced kerb line? Time to dig out Rocque again? I only bought the book today- how’s this for a return on my investment!
@ctesiphon wrote:
Re: Marrowbone Lane . . . . I’m starting to believe we might be onto something.
ctesiphon, I was only half joking about the prevailing winds! I really don’t see the reverse image working. It would be a freakish day in Dublin that you’d get a kite to fly towards the south-west, would it not?
@ctesiphon wrote:
gunter- have you given up on the Benburb Hypothesis? If not, how would you explain the advanced kerb line?
The advanced kerb line is hard to explain, particularly since there’s no sign of basements, unless other houses in the terrace, out of view, had basement and front ‘areas’, or unless it was a very wide street or square, which I imagine is how Newmarket came to be suggested in the first place.
Because of the roof pitch and particularly the non-matching chimney, I think we have to give up on that the Benburb St./Hendrick Lane location, (even though there’s even a tiny old rooflight corresponding to the little dormer in the roof valley).
Anyway the shampoo shine on the kid’d hair suggests the southside rather than the northside 😉
Breaking the rules a little, I’m afraid, can anyone name the architect of this building. Had a look online and couldn’t find any information. I can post an untrimmed version of the image and the address, but that wouldn’t be in the spirit of the thread. So any ideas?
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