Digital Exchange

Corner-sited attached five-bay four-storey former brewery hop store, built 1879-83, having double-pile five-bay block to rear (east), forming eight-bay elevation to north. Now in use as offices. Pitched roofs with raised barges to north and south gables and parapet, with cut granite coping. Recent metal access deck at eaves level to front (west) elevation. Yellow brick walls having rusticated granite quoins. Central bays to front and north elevations having round-arched recess. Cut granite string course at third floor window head level. Snecked rusticated cut limestone walls to ground floor, with cut granite cornice over. Cast-iron and glass wall-mounted lamps. Square-headed window openings to ground, first and second floors. Round-headed window openings to third floor. Windows with brick surrounds, cut granite sills and timber sliding sash windows having two-over-two panes. Recent metal grilles to window openings, some blind openings. Round-arch door opening having rusticated cut granite block-and-start surround. Recent glass doors and metal shutters. Segmental-arch openings to north elevation having yellow brick voussoirs and cut granite reveals. Limestone cobbles to front and north sides.

This building was once part of the neighbouring Guinness brewery that was founded in 1759. This area between Bellevue (also spelled Belview, and marked as Sugar House Lane on Rocque's map of Dublin) and Thomas Court was listed as tenements in Thom's Directory of 1870. It was subsequently purchased and redeveloped by the Guinness Brewery as a hop store designed by W.W. Wilson, head of the works department. The brewery underwent extensive rebuilding in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, including the construction of this and adjacent buildings on Rainsford Street, used for storage and maturation of beer. The use of blind openings provides symmetry and order to the elevations, while skilled stonemasonry is evident in the granite and limestone detailing. Despite its change of use the building retains its early industrial character.