Zap the childrens shop – High Street

Hi Paul,
Can you remember High Street before it was a dual carriageway….when it was a compact little street before the road developers got their hands on it in the 1970’s /1980’s.When it was a more uniform street …..where buildings once stood on St.Audeons landscaped park and the back of Tailors Hall was hidden. There are photographs of how it once looked.

My earliest memories of High Street is with both sides pulled down or about to be for the new dual carriageway. I agree with Paul on the pram shop that it should be removed btw.

Primarily the central island seems to act as a refuge for pedestrians trying to cross the road. My sister works in Tailor’s Hall and the complete area is a nightmare for pedestrians, the traffic islands at Cornmarket are a warren, to cross the street involves about three traffic islands and 10 minutes.

I agree that removal of the central island, widening of pavements and planting of mature trees would be a definite improvement.

The whole place is a tragic disaster area – this was the heart of the medieval city after all. Ripped out by a dual carriageway – and then the replacement buildings – aargh. that cuckoo clock beside tailors hall (Ambrose Kelly I think), the BKD Jury’s hotel

Unfortunately bad architecture has a long half life

Do you know something about Jury’s that we don’t?

I remember the derelict buildings of Christchurch place from when I was younger. Does anybody remember a factory/warehouse where Jury’s Inn is now. It had “BE_AB__” on the side the _ indicate where the letters had fallen off – the font it was in was very 50s sort of like the old ESB lettering. Any answers to that one.

I also remember Wood Quay/Winetavern Street being just hoardings. Dublin was so grim then wasn’t it?

Nooooo, not Murphy’s!!! Don’t do it!! That’s where my Mum & Dad bought my pram when I was born!!!

Sob!!

Siobh

I remember the building which was located on the site of the current Jury’s Christvhurch. A quite horrible 1950’s building that for its last years (or certainly all I remember) was derelict. Beside it was the site of the vehicle imound lot – amazing to think they the Corpo sited this opposite the oldest building in Dublin!

Anyway, don’t remember the letters on the building but its image is ingrained in my head – I always thought it was awful even as a child and was quite relieved when Jury’s replaced it (bad as it is, it was a whole lot better!).

The building resembled the ugly Corpo offices right beside the Fitzsimons hotel on the quays.

the typeface on the building was Profil if memory serves:
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/profil/

I was just remarking a couple of weeks ago how the ‘old city’ part of temple bar had changed from it’s days as the mobile library yard.

I’m amazed that the Pram Shop inspires such hatred. I think it’s kinda cute, and a hangover from Old Dublin. I’d love to see it preserved in some fashion, while every modern building on High St is reduced to rubble. Am I simple contrary?

On this note, does anyone have an old pictures of the area? (High St, Christchurch Place, etc). I’m now living on Castle St, and would love to know how the area looked years ago. I’d be specially curious to see pictures of where Jury’s now stands, and also if any exist of Archbishop Usher’s house, where the Castle Inn now is (I believe it was only knocked down in the 40s, after remaining their for 500 years).

Cheers,

P.

In the book Heart of Dublin, there are engravings of the site of Jury’s Inn, which I think held the name Skinners Row.

The Pram Shop is due to be demolished shortly – the Planning Application is already on the build stating that a residential block is to replace it.

Thanks for the directions, notjim.

If this isn’t the right place, it can be moved yes?

I started a bit of a file on High Street in the early 90s, when I hadn’t much else to do, and I just found it again under something, so before I loose it again, here are some of the photographs I had accumulated.

High Street c. 1975. The four bay building on the left is the ‘Bedding Manufacturer’ from the earlier (How well do you know Dublin) pic.

Aerial view of the same terrace from c. 1984

Amazing pictures and terribly sad; I love when churches are sunk like that into a streetscape, it so medieval, so atmospheric, so true to a folkish religion knotted up in quotidian demands of secular life.

@notjim wrote:

. . so true to a folkish religion knotted up in quotidian demands of secular life.

I was just going to say that!

Here’s another photograph of the east end of High Street in 1963 with, if I’m not mistaken, ctesiphon’s dad on his bike off to buy icecream for the chizzlers in the local shop.

What is that structure out from the front of one of the buildings?

That was the way they used to do scaffolding newgrange, back in the day. Floor joists would be taken out, put on edge and stuck out the windows, the inside end wedged under the floor above and out you went, with your life in your hands.

The date of that one is slightly wrong, must have been late 1964 at the earliest, because there is a firm date of Sept. 1964 on this Paddy Healy photograph of the same houses from the top of Nicholas Street showing no. 3 High Street (the house with the scaffolding) still intact while the rest of the street looks like a bomb hit it.

Apologies for adding a couple of years onto ctesiphon’s dad.

I know this is off topic but can anyone tell me about the Iron bridge over the Strawberry Beds on the Castleknock side

Many Thanks in advance

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=824

control-k to get into your google search window and then “site:https://archiseek.com strawberry beds”

@gunter wrote:

That was the way they used to do scaffolding newgrange, back in the day. Floor joists would be taken out, put on edge and stuck out the windows, the inside end wedged under the floor above and out you went, with your life in your hands.

Crikey.
I was a 1963 baby – I hope my ma kept me well away from those things.
Thanks gunter.

@notjim wrote:

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=824

control-k to get into your google search window and then “site:https://archiseek.com strawberry beds”

Cheers for that;)

@gunter wrote:

High Street c. 1975.

Thanks for these pictures gunter. Fine Wide Streets Commissioners terrace. The existence today of Murphy’s Prams on the same building line shows that there was no need to demolish it at all.

We know that the terrace was built in the early 19th century because there’s a map dated 1817 published in McCullough’s An Urban History showing the Commissioners’ ‘hitlist’ in the Christchurch & St. Patrick’s area, and a straggly group of buildings in this location are included.

Murphy’s Prams got permission in 2005 for demolition and new 4-storey glazed building – Search%20Criteria%20>%20Ref. 1697/05. Elevations in ‘View Documents’. No sign of anything happening.

@gunter wrote:

this Paddy Healy photograph of the same houses from the top of Nicholas Street showing no. 3 High Street

Paddy Healy was taking pictures of crucial streets at a crucial time. Some of the most interesting photos in Pearson’s The Heart of Dublin are his. His photos of Winetavern Street, Bridge Street, the south quays and High Street show a whole city that’s simply gone …

@Devin wrote:

Fine Wide Streets Commissioners terrace. The existence today of Murphy’s Prams on the same building line shows that there was no need to demolish it at all.

That’s a good point Devin. Three of these houses had some rough repairs to their upper facades with some pretty dodgy window replacements, but, in general, the photographs show that they were in sound condition with not a hint of settlement to the roofs or back walls.

The loss of this terrace removes any definition to the north side of the space that once was Cornmarket. Tinkering around with the traffic islands is not going to restore a sense of place here. I keep hearing that DCC have a plan to ‘improve’ Cornmarket, but until the Bridge Street junction is reduced to maybe a third of it’s present sweeping width and a building line restored from here to the forecourt of St. Audoen’s (R.C.), I think they’re wasting their time (and our money).

This is a copy of Brownrigg’s map of 1799 with medieval Cornmarket still clearly defined as an urban space.

@gunter wrote:

Here’s another photograph of the east end of High Street in 1963 with, if I’m not mistaken, ctesiphon’s dad on his bike off to buy icecream for the chizzlers in the local shop.

Close! It’s actually Uncle George. Very similar looking, ’tis true, but my dad always rode a single speed, whereas George was a fan of the three-speed- ‘A power for the hills,’ he’d say.

PS Great photos. I’ve only ever seen the ‘After’ pics in The Destruction of Dublin, which give the feeling of expansive openness without the sense of the enclosure that was lost.

Reminds me of the Ivor Cutler poem (possibly not quoted accurately- I’m doing it from memory, but it’s close):

He laughed in a manner I can only describe by showing you a picture of my thumb before it was broken.

It’s one thing to try and get a physical picture of a street like High Street before it became a windswept duel carriageway, but it’s also possible (just) to get some feel for the street as a faded hub of the commercial / social life of the city. We know from sources like ‘Whalley’s News Letter’ and ‘The Dublin Post Man’ that there were a good number of pubs and inns in the High Street area in the early 18th Century. ‘The Sign of the Parrot’ in High Street has a nice pirate feel to it and there was ‘The Sign of The Sugar Loaf” in Back Lane, near Taylors’ Hall. They were a bit more up-market in Skinners’ Row (Christchurch Place) where their equivalent of Starbucks was ‘Darley’s Coffee House’ in 1715.

At random, I looked up the ‘Freeman’s Journal’ for a date in may 1780 to search for references to High Street, and a couple of snippets turned up:

Mr. Wilson Shoemaker! There was also a James Molloy, Shoemaker advertising for business at no. 62 High Street. How’s that for continuity, remember all the medieval shoes and soles dug up in the High Street excavations.

The same edition of the newspaper (27th May 1780) had notice of the forthcoming meeting, at 48 High Street, of ‘The Universal Free Debating Society’. In this case ‘free’ didn’t extend to the admittance charge, which was listed as ‘a British sixpence’.

The topic for discussion:

and, if time permits:

Obviously time didn’t permit, because the latter topic was up again for discussion on 12th June, with the reserve motion a provocative: ‘Whether the Divine or the Physician is of more utility to mankind?’.

Debates started at 8.00 pm and were to be concluded by 10.00.

I do realize that this is totally useless information.

*wipes spluttered coffee off monitor*

Great stuff, gunter.

The street numbers appear to have been up-dated in the 19th century, but from what I can make out, there were no more than 65 or 66 houses on High Street in the 18th century, which would mean that Mr. Wilson’s Shoemakers premises at no. 64 would have been one of the four High Street houses that we can see in Malton’s view of the Tholsel.

Excepting the corner house on Nicholas Street, these houses were clearly Georgian masked ‘Dutch Billys’ which would accord with the auctioneer’s description of three room on a floor, i.e. front room, back room and return room. Malton incidentally refers to High Street as ‘a very ancient commercial street’.

Of course, somebody has to park a bloody carriage in the way.

Glad to see even Malton didn’t have the time to wait around till his 18th century equivalent of a yellow cliff on wheels moved out of shot. To think it sat there for the full two weeks it took him to compose that.

Talking of different worlds:

Nicholas Street c.1900.

Nicholas ‘Street’ today.

Both taken from exactly the same position at Christchurch. I never knew the remains of St. Nicholas Within were moved back to accommodate road widening. Difficult to gather if that’s more surprising than the fact the remains were even kept at all.

The Dublin Corporation block was also extended/altered to the left since the original picture was taken.

Very interesting Graham – I hadn’t seen photos of Nicholas Street before it was demolished. J.J. Carroll’s looked like my kind of pub too.

Whao, unrecogniseable!

More evidence here of the street-pattern genocide that occured in the area in the late 20th century:

Here’s a few more photographs from the 1960s.

This view looks east from Cornmarket. The vacant edge in the foreground would have been the site of the two corner properties shown on Devin’s 1909 map which defined the east edge of Cornmarket, with High Street to the left and Back Lane to the right. Taylors Hall peeping up to the right of the billboard.

A detail of the shops on High street. Murphy’s is behind the bus with The Magnet’ newsagents next door and the ‘Yankee Bookshop’ next to it.

St. Audoen’s Church from Back Lane, seen through a gap in the streetscape caused by the demolition of houses on High Street.

A clearer photograph of the east end of High Street with Fitsgerald’s shop at no. 1 & 2 beside the Synod Hall. Fitzgeralds also had a shop on Thomas Street, recently a Chinese grocery, and presently under threat of demolition as part of the Frawleys proposal. Fitzgerald’s were reputed to be the only shop in Dublin to hang their clothes outside the shop.

@gunter wrote:

Here’s a few more photographs from the 1960s.

This view looks east from Cornmarket. The vacant edge in the foreground would have been the site of the two corner properties shown on Devin’s 1909 map which defined the east edge of Cornmarket, with High Street to the left and Back Lane to the right. Taylors Hall peeping up to the right of the billboard.

Wow, where are you getting these from gunter? It’s the most intriguing and most changed part of the city but there are fewest old photos of it.

Another sad aerial picture here from a few years later, probably about 1970, with the whole of the south side of High Street now down, except for that bizzare long billboard. I’m just going to have a little cry here that the main street of the medieval city was turned into a motorway! 🙂

The oblong shape of about-to-be-obliterated-for-all-time Cornmarket still clear on the left. There is a great view looking west on Cornmarket pre-demolition published in Frank McD’s Saving the City, but one view of the city I’ve never seen is the view of Cornmarket in the opposite direction pre-demolition, with those two houses at the junction of Back Lane and High Street. Would love to see that, drool! am I sad?

Also, interesting gabled warehouse-type building to the left front of Tailors’ Hall. Wonder what it was?

@Devin wrote:

. . one view of the city I’ve never seen is the view of Cornmarket in the opposite direction pre-demolition, with those two houses at the junction of Back Lane and High Street. Would love to see that,

That has proven to be an illusive view.

A slightly older Aerofilm shot than your one shows the corner house (no. 25 High Street) still intact, but again it’s taken from the rear.

The following shots are as close as I got, they were published (for the want of a better word) in a little Fas pamphlet called ‘Aspects of Saint Audoen’s, the parish with three beginnings’ in 1993. From what I recall, it took a year to track down any decent photographs of High Street and in the end, it was G. A. Duncan on the Cabra Road who turned up trumps with those shots of the buses and the billboard.

This is a copy from the booklet with the 1960s Duncan photograph superimposed on a 1952 photograph from the same direction, which shows the corner onto Cornmarket with those ellusive building still there. The lamp post is the same in each picture.

25, 26 and 27 High Street in 1952

A detail of that picture with a glimpse of old Cornmarket beyond the corner of no. 25. Substantial four storey brick buildings with Victorian gabled facades!

The 1952 photographs were tracked down to a photographic archive in RTE of all places. Not sure who the photographer was, could have been G. A. Duncan again.

Excellent, thanks.

Great photos…….didn’t the uniformity of the street look so much better too when compared to now. The park that’s there today with the overgrown wild plants looks a bit shit as well as the piecemeal developments across the dual carriageway road. The charm and character that surrounded Christchurch has been long lost. It’s a great pity Dublin became so poor, even a greater pity we had an appaling history and everything suffered!

if someone suggested now to build buildings back along that line in front of st audeons they’d be accused of blocking the view of the church… !

i don’t know why anybody would want to build something new there its so stuck on its own, its not near any other shops.

it such a wide road to cross, how about a lightweight X shaped pedestrian bridge that meets in the middle to act as viewing platform for medieval city.

@lostexpectation wrote:

if someone suggested now to build buildings back along that line in front of st audeons they’d be accused of blocking the view of the church… !

i don’t know why anybody would want to build something new there its so stuck on its own, its not near any other shops.

it such a wide road to cross, how about a lightweight X shaped pedestrian bridge that meets in the middle to act as viewing platform for medieval city.

How about a reduction in street width to human/city scale rather than dual carriageway scalwe

I think I am with you on that Rory. What I find about this street, and general intersection of streets is that it divides this part of the city from the Temple Bar/Parliament Street/Castle area of town in a really negative way. This can both be read visually and experienced as a pedestrian in terms of trying to negotiate it from day-to-day.

28/2/2011

Probably the last photograph ever taken of our dear pram shop, snapped on the 9th of February.

The truncated remains of an end building of a Wide Streets Commission terrace that formerly fronted High Street, the building was declared dangerous a few weeks ago and was demolished over the past few days – apparently by the OPW.

A week later in the morning mist.

The spine wall.

The next day.

The wide spacing of its windows would make one wonder if this was an earlier building. A substantial beam straddled the front room, while in the fourth and fifth pictures above, the wall between the staircase and the back room appears to have been entirely timber stud.

Lots of salvaged timbers.

24th of February.

All of the building now appears to be down. It has to be said there is now a much more coherent relationship between the two St. Audeon’s, and much more picturesque views of both also. One wonders how this space will not be resolved – more car parking?

A good few years ago, when this thread was started, I had emails from interested parties demanding its removal…..

@Paul Clerkin wrote:

A good few years ago, when this thread was started, I had emails from interested parties demanding its removal…..

@Paul Clerkin March 03, 1999 wrote:

My earliest memories of High Street is with both sides pulled down or about to be for the new dual carriageway. I agree with Paul on the pram shop that it should be removed btw.

>wink<

So do we know what we’re getting here or is it just an extension to the windswept ‘streetscape’ of High Street

Maybe a statue of Sean Dunne, Sean Fitzpatrick and Michael Fingleton.

You cant see the former Zap shop here. This looks towards the steeple of whats now Dublinia. The building dead centre is now roadway I suppose.