2016:215 - No. 14 Henrietta Street (Dublin North City), Dublin 1, Dublin

Monitoring of groundworks associated with the proposed redevelopment of No. 14 Henrietta Street, Dublin 1 was undertaken between 1 March and 16 September 2016 on behalf of Dublin City Council.

The work undertaken forms part of the implementation of the Henrietta Street Conservation Plan and as such it represents the third major phase of conservation work carried out to No.14 since the enactment of the plan. Previous phases of work secured the stability of the structure; in 2009 the rear wall of the building was rebuilt and in 2014 the windows were conserved. Archaeological monitoring was required in response to a planning condition associated with Part VIII of the planning permission issued by Dublin City Council (Planning Ref: 2593/15).

Dublin City Council are planning to redevelop No. 14 Henrietta from residential use into a cultural, civic and educational facility. Henrietta Street is the singlemost intact and important architectural collection of individual houses within the city of Dublin and as such it is one of the important architectural and urban ensembles in the State. In terms of archaeological significance, the surviving fabric represents the remnants of opulent Georgian social and material life, as well as providing evidence for the partitioned tenement hovels inhabited by the city's late‐19th- and 20th-century poor. This is especially poignant given that many of the tenement houses of the north side of the city have been almost completely cleared away in recent years making Henrietta Street and No. 14 a unique source of historical and archaeological built heritage. The proposed redevelopment will incorporate the life history of the building into the interpretive facilities of the restored and adapted building.

The building can be described as a c. 1750 terraced, four‐bay, four‐story house over exposed basement. It has an M‐shaped slate roof (in profile) with a central pitched section to central valley. The roof is somewhat hidden behind a granite-capped parapet wall. Cast‐iron hoppers and downpipes break through the parapet wall and converge centrally. Red brick chimneystacks are evident on both party walls, topped with brick coping and clay pots. The coursing of the red brick walls is laid in a Flemish bond with partially intact lime tuck‐pointing and wigging noted. The red brick walls sit on a chamfered granite plinth course, placed over limestone block basement walls. Red brick walls comprise the rear elevation with later yellow brick and red brick repaired sections noted on the uppermost floors. Replacement gauged red brick flat‐arch window openings with patent rendered reveals, masonry sills and replacement timber sliding sash windows exist throughout. The windows consist of six‐over‐six panes on the first and second floors, with three‐over‐three panes identified on the western two bays of the top floor. The front door consists of a square‐headed door opening with a painted stone pedimented ionic door case. At the rear the door was flanked by ionic columns on plinth blocks supporting full entablature with pulvinated frieze and dentillated segmental pediment having responding mouldings on either side. The door opens onto granite platform, with two granite steps bridging the basement lightwell. The basement lightwell is enclosed by wrought‐iron railings with cast‐iron finials to corner posts set on a moulded granite plinth wall with a matching iron gate situated to the east.

Monitoring of the groundworks identified a partially surviving corridor‐like red brick structure to the rear of the building. This building is thought to have provided a link from the main house to the mews buildings to the rear and the formal gardens to the south east. The surviving remnants of this building and the boundary wall between Nos 13 and 14 were fully recorded prior to their removal to facilitate the construction of part one-story, part three-story return building to the rear of No. 14. The new extension will accommodate a universal access lift and ancillary service uses associated with the proposed new cultural, civic and educational facility.

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