Thomas Street & James Street, Dublin!
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Planning enforcement were on to it following notification before the white van even pulled away last week. A file is now open.
Listen, the dogs on the street knew this building was being gutted for the past year, and everyone sat on their hands. Everyone. I have no doubt whatsoever this includes an array of officials. Shocking and just incredibly sad. Previous unauthorised works at this building two years ago were flatly ignored by DCC when formally brought to their attention.
exene1 captures the beauty of this building in a nutshell. Its signifiance lay in the marvellous and very rare, untouched mid-nineteeth century patina of its exquisite brickwork, exceptionally fine wigging and the most curious, horizontally paned sash windows glazed with shimmering cylinder glass.
Of course, the wonderfully brooding, heaving mass of a mid-1800s facade conceals a handsome merchant town house of c.1755-60, with possible earlier fabric as charted by gunter above. It has (or had) a giant corner chimneystack and very nice Dublin joinery internally. Lovely doors, skirtings and balusters from both its original construction period and subsequent wave of modification in the mid-1800s. B&Q plaster mouldings are now evident from the street.
Protected Structure indeed.
Are there any examples of where a restoration of such a building has been done properly?
Whilst I agree that protected structures should be protected the steps one must take to gain planning permission are incredibly onerous and, ultimately, very expensive – much more so than you would ever gain back in rent on places like Thomas Street. And a tenant won’t want to be freezing cold in the winter with condensation lashing down the windows
We bemoan owners for letting buildings fall into disrepair but not everyone is a slumlord. Some people can’t get the money for improvements because the rental vs refurb equation just doesn’t stack with the bank. In some cases letting it fall down is cheaper.
I disagree with this. Yes its more complicate to own and properly maintain a protected structure but it is certainly not ‘incredibly onerous’ as you maintain or very expensive. The issue here was that the building owner spent a long period of time failing to do basic maintenance on the property and then systemically went about removing elements of the building that were important to its character. And all this under the nose of Dublin City Council. Its not anymore expensive to repair and repaint the older sash windows that it is to put in uPVCs.
And at the end of the day, if you dont care what happens to your protected structure…then sell the building to someone who does care and invest your money in bland suburban shite. There’s plenty of scope for uPVC there.
As for good examples? I suppose that with over 9,000 protected structures across Dublin city, most of which are not butchered or falling down and where people generally care for the building and heaven forbid are proud of their building and its heritage, there must be some examples.
There’s no such thing as an honest mistake with a protected structure, or at least there shouldn’t be. The owners must be informed of how important the building they have is, and either they’re aren’t, or they’re deliberately being ignorant. It’s that sort of grey area that allows them get away with it.
I will go back to what I said about the Thomas St campaign, although less forcefully this time. I still wonder if amongst the scramble to clean up the appearance of the place, things were allowed happen just for the sake of it. Yes, this house has been consistently picked at for years, but the timing of the windows, with the pressure on owners to fix up their joints, worried me. Not really a go at the volunteers or campaigners – perhaps they didn’t realize there was a set of rare windows languishing behind the boards – but surely any movement to restore this street should be thorough, and well researched. Again I’m making it sound like they put the windows in themselves – I’m not really – but part of the whole campaign should have been enlargement with the various owners and gentle reminders of what it is they have and how to protect it. Then again, maybe they did know – but couldn’t do much about it. Or maybe they didn’t know, and didn’t have anything to do with it. I mean, it’s not really their job anyway, is it?
How would you suggest a programme to improve the street should be done Punchbowl?
@StephenC wrote:
I disagree with this. Yes its more complicate to own and properly maintain a protected structure but it is certainly not ‘incredibly onerous’ as you maintain or very expensive. The issue here was that the building owner spent a long period of time failing to do basic maintenance on the property and then systemically went about removing elements of the building that were important to its character. And all this under the nose of Dublin City Council. Its not anymore expensive to repair and repaint the older sash windows that it is to put in uPVCs.
And at the end of the day, if you dont care what happens to your protected structure…then sell the building to someone who does care and invest your money in bland suburban shite. There’s plenty of scope for uPVC there.
As for good examples? I suppose that with over 9,000 protected structures across Dublin city, most of which are not butchered or falling down and where people generally care for the building and heaven forbid are proud of their building and its heritage, there must be some examples.
There was a perfectly acceptable proposal to breathe life back into a building on Eden Quay recently. The planning has been withdrawn unfortunately and I suspect that is because the planning restrictions put on the proposal by DCC in relation to the protected nature of the existing building were commercially unworkable. But hey! at least it will slowly crumble to the ground unmolested
Always an example of what you’d like not to see out there. And to be fair there can be an unduly onerous approach taken by the Council. And it can be excessively expensive to simply find out of you can get permission for the work you’d like to do.
Your comment lacks specifics and you dont seem certain that the application was withdrawn because of restrictive planning. And perhaps the proposals were poor quality..who knows.
However, there are plenty of examples around the city where a PS is maintained in good condition and viably reused.
In the instance of No 37, the owner simply disregarded all the advice and best practice made available to them and went ahead with destructive behaviour that has significantly reduced the attractiveness of their building and resulted in the loss of features on interest on the building. Its a real shame.
@StephenC wrote:
In the instance of No 37, the owner simply disregarded all the advice and best practice made available to them and went ahead with destructive behaviour that has significantly reduced the attractiveness of their building and resulted in the loss of features on interest on the building. Its a real shame.
Perhaps advice was made available to the owns of no. 37, but even if that is the case, part of the problem as I see it is the seemingly arbitrary nature of the ‘Protected Structure’ register.
Why is it that no. 37 Thomas Street is a Protected Structure, but neither no. 36, nor no. 38 are?
Particularly when the house retained its original sash windows, the façade of no. 37 [which is probably a late 19th century re-facing of the house that Charles Willcocks was inhabiting in the 1740s] had qualities in its proportion and the distinctiveness of the detailing that clearly merited Protected Structure status, but it isn’t just the façade of no. 37 that is protected, it is the whole structure, so clearly, the local authority had a notion that the structure as a whole had conservation significance.
In the fifteen or twenty years since no. 37 was first included on the Register of Protected Structures, has anyone in the local authority ever communicated with the owners of no. 37 to explain what the particular qualities were that mark his building as worthy of a level of conservation protection that the neighbouring structures don’t merit?
Which leads on to a second question; has anyone in the local authority any actual information on the house to communicate?
Has any research been undertaken, in the fifteen or twenty years since the house was first listed, in an effort to clarify the significance of the structure, or any features that it may retain?
Should we really be shocked and dismayed that property owners regularly behave with little or no regard for the Register of Protected Structures?
Essentially we have a system here where the owners of Protected Structures are left to fend for themselves in an information vacuum, often with little or no idea why their particular house was singling out for inclusion on the register in the first place and where they have little reason for confidence that the register is either fair or grounded in anything more that a superficial glance at the streetscape.
Like no. 37, both no. 36 [The Fade-Willcocks Bank] and no. 38 have undeniable streetscape merit, even in their present 19th century guise, but in addition to that there is strong documentary evidence that both structures were newly rebuilt between 1728 and 1734 and it is probable that much of the fabric of both houses substantially dates from this period. As we know, the built-heritage of this period, which was the heyday of the gabled tradition, continues to disappear at an alarming rate.
For decades, Dublin City Council have treated their responsibilities for building conservation as a bloody nuisance and even today responsibility for protected structures is dispersed among half a dozen departments or divisions; Planning, Planning Enforcement, Conservation, City Architects Office, Heritage Office etc. all of which fragmentation conveniently keeps the goal of building conservation from ever being a serious objective that might require the allocation of actual resources.
I’m not defending the owner of no. 37 Thomas Street for his culpability for the unauthorized works to this Protected Structure, but if I was defending him, I think I’d be entitled to join the city manager into any action taken against him.
Yes agree with that. The whole system is incoherent. Designation of buildings (especially 2001 at the adoption of the substantive RPSs of counties as as result of the new Planning Act) has been arbitrary and not based on any rational or verifable (or probably accurate) information. The NIAH process grinds on years and years since the first listings were published. Its is a joke.
Of course this building also lies with a statutory ACA, which should offer some protection to its neighbours. But who pays a blind bit of attention to those, least of all in the Council.
The plaster building next to 37 Thomas Street, on the left below, also needs correct windows reinstated in it.
Those are some very high quality pictures you’ve got hold of there exene
Behind that rendered façade, No. 38 may be substantially the ‘new brick house’ that a Benjamin Stanley, victualler, built in 1734, in replacement of an earlier house on the site which had been occupied by a John Lewis. In July of that year, Stanley acquired a lease of the property from the widow and spinster daughter of John King, brewer, who in turn held the ground from the Earl of Meath. Stanley had dabbled in development before on another site near by on Thomas Court and we may even know who the actual builder was for the Thomas Street house as one of the witnesses to the 1734 lease was a William Brabing, carpenter.
For that date, and given the 22 foot, three-bay, façade, there is little doubt that the new house looked like this conjectural restoration of no. 20 Thomas Street, though possibly without the stone bands that were beginning to be omitted in favour of plain brick façades at this time.
The property was known at this time by the sign of ‘The Pied Bull’ which was a popular name for inns in England in the 18th century, some of which survive today like a popular one that this sign belongs to in Chester.
Behind the Pied Bull on Thomas Street was a second smaller inn simply called ‘The Bull Inn’ which was entered through a passageway on the west side.
Each of these houses are rich repositories of local history, of one kind or another, it would be nice if we had a greater appreciation of these layers of history and kept them in mind when decision are being made about chucking out the old windows etc.
The remains of Lynch’s Pub on Thomas Street destroyed by fire this evening…
http://www.thejournal.ie/thomas-street-fire-1111485-Oct2013/
There’s been a lot of unsocial activity round those parts lately (I live on Echlin St) – not that I’m suggesting anything. All I know is that a quick peek through the windows of this pub recently (through Marshalsea Lane) showed a pretty intact pub interior, and god know what else lurking in the back rooms, and basement. It would be a shame if the pub had something worth hanging on to…
Actually, from the pictures it looks like it was the back buildings that went up
Sadly it looks utterly destroyed. I am sure the Dangerous Buildings section will spring to action in the morning.
Is this the building that was burnt?:
Seen here on the left:
@Morlan wrote:
Marshalsea Lane, Thomas Street. Site of Robert Emmet’s principal depot in 1803. These depots were used to manufacture and store war material. Taken from “Footprints of Emmet” published in 1903.
Afraid so – here’s some pics from the Thomas St side – it’s ruined. (apologies for the quality, it was lashing)
Bluddy hell, I was only looking at that building recently wondering how did it survive when all else around it was demolished.
It was either a two-storey rear annex to the main four-storey building, 144 Thomas Street, with a facade and doorways onto Marshalsea Lane, or a separate individual building on the lane.
So here it is with 144 Thomas Street still standing:
And then after No. 144 was demolished to ground floor level. Still in use as a dwelling, apparently:
And then on its own:
Even struck me that it would be worth keeping in its own right, as an example of an old building in the lanes where Robert Emmet had his weapons depot. May well have been there in Emmet’s time …………… And since they demolished his family’s house on Stephen’s Green only in the 1970s.
Even if the shell is kept now any sense of oldness it will have had inside will be gone.
A shame indeed. I passed this morning and the former shop unit has been completely gutted. The roof of the return structure that exene1 charts has collapsed, and it appears that the interior is destroyed.
Apparently No. 143 and No. 144 have both been tied up in wrangling for quite some time. Believe it or not, I understand Dublin City Council themselves hold the fee simple to No. 143 next door, in spite of a giant advertising hoarding oversailing the site on the gable wall of No. 142. I’m not sure what the ownership status of No. 144 is.
The most unassuming house at No. 142 (below) is older than it appears. It has good, deeply coved cornicing to the first floor front room characteristic of 1750-1770. A modest arched and pilastered surround of c.1800-1830 survives at ground floor level in the side entrance corridor. I must find those pictures. There is evidence internally that the first floor windows were shortened in height from their original, more elegant length. Admittedly, the rest of the house is largely gutted and/or drylined out, but there’s no question that the structure is salvagable. No. 143 appears to have been its matching pair. What a fine group they would have been.
No. 142 is in the upcoming Allsop Space auction on October 15th. No doubt another of Thomas Street’s old decency that will vaporise with time, or given the current climate in the city, just be gutted in broad daylight.
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