The scaffolding dissappears…

The church was sold last November to a Co Meath Restaurantuer with a track record in heritage buildings, I am very optimistic on this one, great to hear that after 20 years of having ‘temporary scaffolding’ the building is finally going to look something like it did in its original form. 🙂

I wonder when it will be reopened to the public?

Was the scaffolding not a protected structure? 🙂

Joking aside, I am looking forward to seeing it.

Went to see it this morning – it’s funny how the front of the building from Hardwicke St looks as familar as ever because of that classic view in the 1840s photograph many people are so used to now, but the rear and other more modern-day views look very strange alright – in a good way :). It really is a beautiful structure.

Unfortunately serious work is needed; whatever about the soundness of the spire structure, certainly its decorative state is very poor. The joins in the stonework are very obvious as if there’s been a lot of movement, many of the stone carvings have suffered severe erosion – notably the capitals of the columns, and overall it needs a good cleaning, with large accumulations of soot underneath cornices and other nooks and holes etc. The surfaces of the main spire facades are surprisingly clean however.

The flats on Hardwicke Street & crescent look great I think, nice efficient, streamlined design that works very well with the church at the top. Very strange to see the last straggling Georgian remains of what used to be here at the western end of the street 🙁

When I look at St. George’s, I sometimes think I am looking at drawings for a really great Georgian church, where you’d go ‘wow, imagine that had been built’. I always find it slightly hard to believe that it was actually built, that it’s actually there!

The Dublin Civic Trust’s Buildings at Risk list of 1997 / 2001 describes it as “The finest classical parish church in the city, designed by Francis Johnson circa 1805, terminating the access from three streets. It has formal elevations on four fronts and a superb interior which is among the major works of Francis Johnson…Church was deconsecrated in 1990 and sold to a concert promoter…All of the pews and the pulpit were removed without permission in 1994”. It’s good if it is in the hands of somebody more sensitive now, as you say Thomond, but no doubt restoration work will be a massive undertaking.

Looking forward to seeing it without the spire scaffolding, as I don’t remember it beforehand. That classic view of the Four Courts dome flanked by St. George’ spire & St. John & Augustine’s spire – as used in the opening still of ‘Strumpet City’ – will be possible again (though I haven’t quite worked out where the viewing point is!).

You can see all three from up around the Magazine Fort in the Phoenix Park if I remember rightly.
It’s probably the best view you can ever get of Dublin up there.

You have to love it – it’s such an institution at this stage it even seems to have been made by the Edwardians – that opening sequence is just a classic 🙂
It’s out on DVD now, and there’s a decent hardback copy of the novel in the Oxfam shop on Parliament St.at the minute…

Also, the chopped remnants of the pulpit are apparently in Thomas Read’s pub

…and reappears. The scaffolding is going back up again!
That explains a lot – the original scaffolding must have been in rag order and unsafe having been up there for 30 years. Presumably the new scaffolding is going up now for a full restoration to be at last carried out.

Here’s some pics of its magnificent spire – tomorrow or Friday will probably be the last day it will be fully visible for maybe a year or so if a full job is being carried out 🙁

I love that right-hand pic, Strumpet City or what – the atmospheric smoke provided courtesy of an exceptionally filthy steamroller 🙂

Below – some (fuzzy) detail of the poor condition of the stonework:

Also the church’s cornice has suffered from erosion:

And the magnificent portico – classic Johnston:

Where are the pews now do you know Devin? What’s the interior condition like after the theatre conversion?

@Graham Hickey wrote:

…and reappears. The scaffolding is going back up again!
That explains a lot – the original scaffolding must have been in rag order and unsafe having been up there for 30 years. Presumably the new scaffolding is going up now for a full restoration to be at last carried out.

Maybe the scaffolding was actually a protected structure after all that.

Devin, did you guys make them put it back up? 🙂

Good photos Graham. Nice to get them before repair begins again. It really is a magnificant piece of architecture.

There’s a story to flog to the Indo Paul – An Taisce outraged at the illegal removal of listed scaffolding 🙂

absolutely fabulous spire

Yes, yes, very funny Phil & Graham 🙂 (put-on smilie)

What a cracker of a church it is though. Great photos. Must get some of my own before the scaffolding goes back up 🙁 . Don’t know where the pews are, but I’ll ask. Otherwise the interior is said have suffered progressive loss of original detail due to holding of raves etc.

As you do in a church 🙂

The oil-lamp stands are incredible survivers here – loads of them, even round the back. Another strange similarity to St. Stephen’s:

The spire inspired (excuse the pun) the spire of Cavan Cathedral circa 1945, near direct copy.

Fascinating!:

And St George’s, as AT’s site also points out is based on St-Martin-in-the-Fields in London:

…which in turn is based on many of Wren’s earlier parish churches. Again which were influenced by…..okay we’ll stop there 🙂

St George’s also has the honour of starring in what’s widely regarded as the first set of photographs ever taken in Ireland in around 1848. I’ve wanted to do this comparison for years – at last got round to it:

It is spooky to see real people from such an early time – also poignant to note this was taken in the last 2 to 3 years of respectability for the Northside – it was downhill all the way from here 🙁
I wonder if it was ever anticipated just how bad things would get…

A close-up of the people:

Don’t know why they’re associating with that riff-raff on the right 🙂

Also a strange comparison with today – pretty impressed at how well aligned the modern day camera position turned out. Spooky that I was standing on the exact spot of the photographer 😮

Graham. That looks mad, but really impressive!

Kinda crazy all right, esp the NDP sign – could have done with those funds 150 years ago :rolleyes:

I think an image like that really demonstrates how much of a difference the jumble of signs, cars etc make to vistas such as that. And that area is not even that heavily cluttered.

@phil wrote:

I think an image like that really demonstrates how much of a difference the jumble of signs, cars etc make to vistas such as that. And that area is not even that heavily cluttered.

College Green takes the biscuit on that score, the level of clutter at that site is really second to none.

Graham, In relation to the photoshop image you have put together of St Georges, 🙂 I am facinated by the right hand side of Harwicke St in the Victorian image and the way that the chimney stacks visable to the rear of the Church added to the setting.

The original setting must have been something else – although the Georgians seemed to have come a lot closer to the church than the present day crescent.
Here’s the last houses on the street – quite modest merchant housing; they’re even nicer on the opposite side and all could do with restoration. At least some efforts have been made to improve the area with PVC :rolleyes:
:

Sorry about this, but I can’t see any of the photos of St George’s Church. Is there anyway of posting them again as individual attachments?

@Thomond Park wrote:

College Green takes the biscuit on that score, the level of clutter at that site is really second to none.

Very true, as demonstrated in the An Taisce report: Dublinspirations. I noticed recently that the CCTV pole on the central traffic island is exactly inline with the axis of Trinity’s front arch and the Campanale.

@phil wrote:

Very true, as demonstrated in the An Taisce report: Dublinspirations. I noticed recently that the CCTV pole on the central traffic island is exactly inline with the axis of Trinity’s front arch and the Campanale.

I saw the image in the Indo a few months back and as they say a picture really does tell a thousand words and as for the new camera sure isn’t it the Southsides version of the spire and it’s only wonderful that it aligns perfectly with the apex of the Trinity facade. :rolleyes:

Kefu the pictures are in the post I nearly missed them as well , it is such an image rich post that it takes ages to load if you are dependent on a dodgy server like myself. 😎

An interesting article from the Irish Times here, which seems to suggest that the spire can not be saved without being dismantled and rebuilt.

From the Irish Times, February ’02 by Frank McDonald
One of the most important landmarks in the centre of Dublin, St George’s Church in Hardwicke Place, is now the subject of a dangerous buildings order, The Irish Times has learned.
The order, issued by Dublin City Council, requires the owner of the former church to remove all the loose stonework in its triple-tiered steeple and wrap it in wire mesh to prevent any more falling off.
But the council has no money to assist the owner, Redgrove Properties Ltd, of Galway, in restoring the building because the Government halved grants for the restoration of heritage properties in this year’s Budget.
The cost of restoring the steeple and portico of St George’s (now the Temple Theatre) is estimated at €3 million, equivalent to the entire allocation for 2002 of funding for the restoration of heritage properties throughout the State.
The steeple of St George’s, which is nearly as high as Liberty Hall, is the only church spire that can be seen from O’Connell Bridge. It is also the first landmark that greets visitors on their way in to the city centre from Dublin Airport.
The former church, which was opened in 1814 and deconsecrated more than a decade ago, is acknowledged as the masterpiece of Francis Johnston, architect of the GPO in O’Connell Street and the Chapel Royal in Dublin Castle.
Its steeple has been surrounded by scaffolding for the past 15 years because the Portland stone was cracking due to expansion of the iron cramps that held it in place, the same problem that once afflicted the Custom House.
The Church of Ireland, having tried in vain to raise funds for the restoration of St George’s, sold the building in 1991 to an actor, Mr Sean Simon, who had plans to turn it into a theatre. He, too, eventually gave up.
After its deconsecration, the bells which Leopold Bloom heard ringing in Ulysses were removed to Taney Church in Dundrum, while the ornate pulpit was carved up to decorate Thomas Read’s pub in Parliament Street.
Even after St George’s became a major “rave” venue, further attempts were made to raise public funds for its restoration; first, in 1991, to celebrate Dublin’s role as European City of Culture, and later from the Millennium Committee.
But despite its location in the heart of the Taoiseach’s constituency, no funding was forthcoming.
“It is absolutely scandalous that this has been allowed to go on and on,” Mr David Slattery, the conservation architect, said yesterday.
Mr Slattery, who was responsible for the restoration of the Custom House in 1991, said there was absolutely no doubt that St George’s could be restored, although this would probably mean taking down and rebuilding its steeple.
His 1991 report on the church found that the cornice and frieze of its Greek-style portico were also affected by spalling stonework due to the expansion of ferrous metal clamps.
According to Mr Slattery, the present owner of the church could not be saddled with the bill for its restoration.
“Given that our historic buildings are one of the main reasons tourists come here, surely Bord Fáilte could chip in,” he said.
In the meantime, Redgrove Properties Ltd has been given 28 days to carry out the works required by the city council to remove the danger posed by stonework from the church’s landmark steeple falling into the street.

@kefu wrote:

His 1991 report on the church found that the cornice and frieze of its Greek-style portico were also affected by spalling stonework due to the expansion of ferrous metal clamps.

You’d wonder what state the stonework is in now, 14 years on.
That metal clamp problem is a nasty one – this job will probably take a long long time if the steeple has to be pratically rebuilt. In the case of the Custom House, I wonder if each block had to be removed individually to access the deficient clamps or if there was another way of doing it?

That is an interesting question and you would hope for the owners sake that technology has moved on, I also wonder did he know the true extent of the works facing him? I hope he did and that the full cost has finance in the wings.

St. George’s
The loss of St. George’s planned context of Georgian houses – its (near) axial street and crescent to the front – was sad. But at least the replacement ‘50s flats approximately replicated the original planning design. The flats are not bad architecturally, but they’ve been ruined by fat ugly shiny white PVC windows. Dublin Corporation, as they were then, went on a huge programme in the mid/late ‘90s of PVC-ing all their flats throughout the city centre, including architecturally important ones like those on Sandwith/Townsend St. I don’t think that would even happen now, ten years later – I think sustainable timber would be the only option (for timber).

Law Society building
Another sad loss of formal Georgian setting was Blackhall Street (top), which led to the Law Society building, formerly the Blue Coat School, on Blackhall Place (Graham’s photo of St. George’s original setting is reposted for reference). Unlike Hardwicke Street/Hardwicke Place, this street has been fairly comprehensively mucked-up by three different stlyes and periods of council housing.

The Law Society building was originally to have had a nice tower (above), but it was never completed for lack of funds.

Devin that is a really good image of Blackhall St with the background framed by the Bluecoat School (which was also home to Kings Hospital School for a time) the fact that a terrace of Georgians were lost whilst a terrace of modest Edwardian 2 storey red-bricks were retained just goes to show how misguided ‘deveolpment policies’ were in Dublin in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s. It is an image I have never seen before as I always think of 1970’s electrical wholesalers when I think of that area. It really is a pity as were many other of the so called ‘slum clearances’ none more unfortunate than the loss of the context of St Georges.

What an image indeed – never knew there was such imposing Georgian development so far west, although it makes sense now when you consider the Blue Coat next door. What a crying shame it was swept away, esp considering how regular the terraces were – look at all those chimneys marching along on the left 🙁 (even if they’re probably Victorian :))
And when you consider the general mess that’s there today…

The dome of the Blue Coat is great – it’s so obvious it was never intended for the building, and it looks even stranger at the moment because panels of it have just been re-coppered as part of the building’s restoration project.

As for the Hardwicke St flats, yes the PVC is awful, and is even worse on the grand Mercer St flats as another example. It’s such a pity to see them all ruined this way. By contrast, the Iveagh Trust restores most if not all of its many thousands of original sashes at its various locations, even as far back as the mid-90s when the Corpo were taking them out.

Just on these vistas in Dublin though – despite how quaint and charming and all the rest of it that these places are – you’d really wonder at the inability of developers to properly lay out their lands so they’d actually work visually.
I mean Hardwicke St isn’t alligned with St George’s, the Rotunda isn’t alligned with O’Connell St, from what I can make out from that image above, the Blue Coat School wasn’t correctly positioned with Blackhall St…it’s surprising it was even bothered to put City Hall head-on with Parliament/Capel St!
The Pepper Cannister on Mount St is about the only Georgian vista that works, and it’s because it’s the only one that it’s so hackneyed at this stage.

Of course there was difficulty in acquiring neighbouring lands and some older roads were laid out before others etc, but it’s just frustrating to see so many lost opportunities still niggling around 200 years later.

I always thought that it would have been better to leave what had been built of the Blue Coat tower intact rather than removing it and putting that copper stub on….

@Paul Clerkin wrote:

I always thought that it would have been better to leave what had been built of the Blue Coat tower intact rather than removing it and putting that copper stub on….

Are there any images of the building before the tower was put on or was it that the design was changed?

Yes – this most extraordinary image from the National Library’s Online Collection shows the foundations and base of the ill-fated tower (this collection’s a fantastic resource)

The following image is one of the strangest photographs you’re ever likely to see – brace yourself 🙂

http://kildarest.nli.ie/npa/lroy2/lroy3082.htm

I don’t know when the dumpy dome was put on though – perhaps around 1900?

I’m a little confused as the Blue Coat School features in the Malton series of prints, was it depicted as being half finished?

Can’t say I remember what it is depicted as, though I’ve a feeling it’s half built in it – keep meaning to get Craig’s handy little book of prints…always need it for things like these!

@Paul Clerkin wrote:

I always thought that it would have been better to leave what had been built of the Blue Coat tower intact rather than removing it and putting that copper stub on….

According to Craig Dublin 1660-1860 the stub was all that was built (albeit as a ‘temporary’ solution until funds were forthcoming)

@Rory W wrote:

According to Craig Dublin 1660-1860 the stub was all that was built (albeit as a ‘temporary’ solution until funds were forthcoming)

Thanks for that Rory, Craig is always an authority on such matters, I wonder was what was erected designed as the original or was it a comtemporary design. I think I’ll trek down to the Archive and see if they have anything that may clear it up.

Just reading here – Ivory’s original spire base was circular, even though that built is octagonal. In Devin’s pic above it’s not totally clear if the base there is octagonal but presumably it is. Don’t know who that sketch is by….

The dome was eventually added in 1894.

Interesting to be able to see even today that the building really was built on a shoestring budget – not just indicated by the tower, but also the side elevations of the buildings; despite them being very prominent in the overall scheme, they’re just rubble stone.
The ashlar main facades have a bizarre almost stuck on appearance as a result.

Just to go back to the original discussion for a second (not that I mind the interesting line to which this thread has taken), but would I be right in saying that the scaffolding is presently going back up?

I’ll have a look in the morning 🙂

@Graham Hickey wrote:

I’ll have a look in the morning 🙂

I had a look this evening, there is some scaffolding back up, but it is not on the same scale, it is much slimer and there are much fewer courses of it.

A great view of the Spire can be found on South Great Georges St, through the air-space provided by Temple Lane South, I wonder is that how the lane acquired its name?

Here’s a picture of the new scaffolding still going up.
You can appreciate the profile of the spire much better this time round which is great 🙂

@Graham Hickey wrote:

You can appreciate the profile of the spire much better this time round which is great 🙂

Until a banner is wrapped around it!

@phil wrote:

Until a banner is wrapped around it!

Advertising an inverted Cornetto :p

😀 😉
We better be careful, we might be giving someone ideas!

I dunno now – I think it’d add a splash of colour to the area.

😀

Just to reply to one or two Q.s about Law Society bdg.:

The tower is indeed finished and magnificently shown in the Malton print – he was obviously privy to the drawings.

The drawing I posted of the tower is architect Ivory’s original drawing of it (from the rear), from a book about the building called New Lease of Life published by the Archit. Archive, which has loads of great photos & drawings of the building.

Must have a look around that Nat. Lib. Online Coll.

@Graham Hickey wrote:

I dunno now – I think it’d add a splash of colour to the area.

:p

‘Learning from Las Vegas’ Graham? 🙂

You’d think I’d have something better to be doing :rolleyes:

@Graham Hickey wrote:

I dunno now – I think it’d add a splash of colour to the area.

What better than that, it would get the Stirling

or the turner art prize

Just a quick pic from ages ago of St Georges. It was never actually confirmed here if the scaffolding was covered up again and if you could still see the spire – well you can’t 🙂

Wahey – look at that seagull go! 😀
Away to off-load on poor old Daniel no doubt…

Obviously this is the view from O’Connell Street cause I wasn’t trudging all the way up there again. Findlater House kindly shattering the fantasy skyline there 😡
Anyone know how long the restoration is due to take?

Quite a while one would imagine I was passing over the weekend and noticed some details such as the internal mesh glass window panes and other poor interventions that have occured over the years.

St Georges much be the largest private sector restoration undertaken in a long time, I am sure that the end result will justify the wait and I hope it justifies the owners bottom line to boot.

The Sunday Times ran a story on this development a couple of months back…

ONE of Dublin’s best-known churches will be available for rent after its new owner completes a E3m refurbishment.

St George’s in Hardwicke Place has the tallest spire in the city but it has been swathed in scaffolding for more than 20 years, amid fears that it was about to fall down. Dublin city council even made the tower the subject of a dangerous buildings order three years ago, fearing that masonry would fall onto passers by.

Eugene O’Connor, a Meath developer who bought the church last December for E1.5m, has now begun to repair the damaged exterior of the 200-year-old building, which was deconsecrated by the Church of Ireland in 1990. He says that once outside repairs costing about E2m are completed, the interior will be fitted out at a cost of up to E1m, and tenants could move in by August 2006.

O’Connor also plans to light the tower, making the 208ft structure visible throughout the city at night-time.

Harrington Bannon has been appointed as the letting agents and says it is already in negotiations with potential occupiers. “The building was previously used as a music venue but would also make a striking office headquarters,” said Peter Flanagan.

“We have also been in touch with restaurant operators, but they would only take part because the building is so vast.”

The church has been through a variety of owners since the Church of Ireland sold it in 1991. Its interior was stripped, with the pulpit ending up in a pub in Temple Bar, and it was variously used as a bingo hall, a theatre and finally a music bar and rave venue, including dancing in the former crypts. Its bells, which feature in James Joyce’s Ulysses, were relocated to a church in Dundrum.

Designed in about 1805 by Francis Johnston, the architect of the GPO, the church’s stone has cracked due to the rusting and expansion of cast iron bands that held the blocks in place. These will now have to be removed and replaced with stainless steel versions, a similar job to that once carried out on the Custom House.

But James O’Connor, the conservation architect in charge of the project, has allayed fears that the landmark steeple will have to be taken down and rebuilt.

“The condition is substantially sound, but there is a lot of work to be done on the tower,” he said. “Our engineers are still assessing it, but I don’t believe at this point the steeple will have to be rebuilt.

“There are some areas where water is getting in through the roof, but it’s mostly dry.”

Dubliners got their first, albeit fleeting, look at the tower since 1985 when the old scaffolding was recently removed and replaced by a new aluminium structure.

The developer has already restored a similar church in Duleek, Co Meath. He purchased the derelict St Cianan’s in 1999 and it re-opened in 2004 as a restaurant called the Spire.

The Navan developer is confident of raising the E3m needed to refurbish St George’s, even though previous owners of the building said they were refused credit by banks nervous of its north inner city location.

Rates on the building amount to E30,000 a year, ironically the maximum that the new owner can expect by way of a city council or Heritage Council grant towards the cost of refurbishment.

Thanks for that Sue – good news that the developer seems to have a good track record.
Couple more images of the scaffolding:

…including some loosened stonework:

@J. Seerski wrote:

At the other end of Hardwicke Street, a terrace of three houses by Thomas Sherrard remain, with unsual doorcases and in generally poor condition – one to the right being rebuilt inappropriately. While the vista to St. George is amazing, this vista looking the other way should not be ignored, and given the unusual design, especially doorcases and granite string courses should be a priority in conservation of the area.

Is it this granite string course on the houses terminating the Hardwicke vista on Frederick St?
(attachment below)

Yes some white floodlighting of the spire would be really magnificent, as you say from O’Connell St/Westmoreland St the view would be marvellous, but the real gem would be from Drumcondra as mentioned before where the whole spire rises perfectly centred between the avenue of trees of the main road – what an entrance to the city!

Improved lighting is badly needed across the north inner city – countless police surveys in the UK and elsewhere show how crime rates also fall in such conditions.

@J. Seerski wrote:

Continuing with the general area, there is an dreadful waste of a site next to the ‘Black Church’ at St. Mary’s Place – there is a part demolished terrace and a derict corner site next to Mountjoy Street, resulting in a spectacular opportunity for redevelopment and innovative architecture for a unique site.

This is a very good point. The view of the Black Church from the sreet that connects Mountjoyjoy St. to Constitution Hill is magniticant and never mentioned. Its such a pity that the vast majority of the street is just the back garden walls of the cottages. J.Seerski is right to point out the importance of the site mentioned. Unfortunatly given its loction, I’m sure any old red brick PVC bland rubish that has plent of shoebox ‘appartments’ will be built instead.

Do you not think the area will need to be re-gentryfied as well?

Mixed income housing, Improvement to the various streets..

From the top of O’Connell St. there is a pointless vacuum of city until you get to Phibsboro.
I’d say, given proper investment and it’s own HARP (Historic Area Regeneration Programme-remember those??) the area could take on a whole new lease of life, would give purpose to the top of O’Connell St (it leads to nowhere at present) and would link Phibsboro properly to the city centre.

And with the ‘Joy moving in a few years, the impetus will be on to drag the area into the 21st century.
The Corpo flats have to be redone. The church is magnificent, it deserves a proper stage.

Don’t know why they’re associating with that riff-raff on the right

Riff Raff ? Its Bill Cullen !

lets hope the northern georgian area of teh city gets a much needed facelift

North Great George’s St is lovely. Walked up and down it for 6 years on way to and from school.

One of my fav streets in the city.

I see the church is mentioned in the Irish Times today in a less than glowing article on the governments record on conservation.Maybe this will shame them into acting, the goverment usually reacts to any negative publicity by throwing money at it…. a restored spire flood lit at night would look magnificent

@fergalr wrote:

North Great George’s St is lovely. Walked up and down it for 6 years on way to and from school.

The Doorways of North Great Georges Street
http://www.irish-architecture.com/buildings_ireland/dublin/northcity/great_georges_street/index.html

anyone been up near Temple Street recently? is the scaffolding still up?

Fair enough Tommyt, perhaps living in the suburbs gives me a bit too objective an opinion on inner city communities..
But I think the rest of my points are valid.

Any sign of completion on this?

Hi all.
This is my first post and I hope I am doing it right. My query is about St. George’s Church, Hardwicke Street. I would like to know what the old clock chimes sounded like. When I say old I mean pre-1951 when the old clock stopped working after 123 years (the present clock dates from the mid-sixties).

My query arises from James Joyce’s Ulysses, where this clock strikes at 10.45 a.m., and Leopold Bloom interprets the sound as
Heigho! Heigho!
Heigho! Heigho!
Heigho! Heigho!
Some commentators think this represents Westminster Chimes, but I’m not too sure about this.

Graham,

Where do you get all of those fantastic old pics of Dublin? Is there a website or do you just scan them in?

Well if it isn’t Zap after all this time 🙂

A bit of both really – books and the internet, most widely available. It’s coming across the less well-known ones that proves most interesting – there’s a rank of cliched pics of ‘aul Dublin’ that get churned out every five minutes and have been examined to death, but the real gems are those that rarely get seen, the Hardwicke St one being a case in point – part of a set of about five pictures taken in about 1848, probably the first ever professional set taken in this country. The Upper Yard of Dublin Castle was another of them.

The National Library online catalogue has some great photographs too:

http://hip.nli.ie/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=hello#focus

look like the scaffolding is finally coming down for good …. standing at the bottom of Westmoreland Street the spire jumps out.. it would look fantastic flood lit when it is finished

Yup – indeed they started taking it down about a month ago I think. Saw a wonderful elevated view of it from the railway bridge on East Road the other day – it really stands out in so many parts of the north city.

The current scene on Hardwicke Street:

There’s a long way to go yet; the lower building hasn’t been touched at all, externally at least.

The spire:

Looking in great condition. It’ll be interesting to see what the lower sections are like when unveiled, as these were quite badly weathered.

And the view from O’Connell Street 🙂

Floodlighting is going to be spectacular, as the bone coloured Portland stone will stand out dazzlingly bright on the night sky.

Was up that way last Friday night. The steeple looks magnificent, hope someone on here with a digi camera will be up that way soon to take a few pictures. The Mater’s repointing of a few townhouses on Eccles St. and their two infill builings (pretty decent) on Nelson St. bring the whole neighbourhood up a notch or two, slightly cleansing their dirty bib over the mater private/Leopold Bloom’s gaff travesty..

Here’s a couple snaps;

[ATTACH]7114[/ATTACH][ATTACH]7115[/ATTACH]

large version here, if it you want to examine the spire; http://www.flickr.com/photos/58086761@N00/2330313925/sizes/o/in/set-72157600177298026/

I dropped into Eason’s a few days ago and noticed a book I hadn’t seen before about the architectural history of Dublin. I don’t know if it’s a new book or a new edition. I just flicked through it – now I can’t remember the name or author- I think maybe it had ‘urban’ in the title, so maybe ‘an urban history’, anyway, at the back of the book is printed an old photograph of the interior of St.George’s as it appeared while still a church, with all it’s fittings etc. Along with it by the way are similar pictures of other Georgian and later Anglican churches.

Perhaps if someone has it maybe they might add the picture to the thread?

Also some of you might be interested to know, if you don’t already, that the original altar rails from S.George’s are now in St.Iberius’s church, Wexford town, a small Anglican Georgian church. Here they are;

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This maaaaay have appeared on other threads which I haven’t seen, but there’s a piece in today’s Irish Times which should be of interest to the readers of this one.

I never had the opportunity (or upbringing?:p) to use it as a church, I liked it as a theatre/concert venue, and I hope it will be a great success in its new role.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/commercialproperty/2009/0325/1224243361396.html

It’s hard being churlish about this and at least the externals are preserved, but is its conversion to ‘offices’ – however skilfully done – does still seem a loss of a valuable ‘public’ space. I do remember once having heard the bells ring out over North Dublin, but I suppose the Northside’s loss is Dundrum’s gain. What a home for small-scale music performances this would have made; I think there was such a proposal once, but the main objection was that Southside nobs would not park their Volvos in such an area. (!)

Yes, the conversion to offices is extremely unfortunate, even if the physcial manifestation of which is ‘light in touch’, ‘reversible’, ‘readable’, ‘independently structurally expressive’ yadda yadda. The loss of the pews at least gave some cause for such a radical new use, but the restriction on public access is most regrettable, as is the compromising of the interior’s original spatial qualities. Reversable or not, what is there is what is there – and is likely to be there for a very long time. We have weak policy on the conversion of historic churches.

Otherwise, the exterior restoration has not simply been excellent, it has been masterful. It would be an injustice to post pictures of the building until such a time as the last fragments of scaffolding (currently in the form of mesh about the vents of the tower) have been fully removed.

@johnglas wrote:

It’s hard being churlish about this and at least the externals are preserved, but is its conversion to ‘offices’ – however skilfully done – does still seem a loss of a valuable ‘public’ space. I do remember once having heard the bells ring out over North Dublin, but I suppose the Northside’s loss is Dundrum’s gain. What a home for small-scale music performances this would have made; I think there was such a proposal once, but the main objection was that Southside nobs would not park their Volvos in such an area. (!)

When it was relaunched as the Temple Theatre about 8/9 years ago I was at the opening night and I didn’t think it worked as an entertainment venue at all. the basement was a really awkward space and felt extremely claustrophobic and the main space had awful acoustics for amplified music. It would be preferable to see a civic or public admin use for the building but I don’t know if it could take over (for example) the role the Hugh Lane currently provides for small scale musical performances. Compared to the Black Church it is difficult to recycle as a secular space and it’s as decent an effort as could have been expected. Fabulous exterior job done for sure.

tommyt: thanks for making the points; you’ve seen and experienced it and I haven’t. It was the use for ‘chamber’ performances I had in mind, but as an element in townscape it’s great that it has been restored so well.