Guinness Brewery

Corner-sited attached three-bay three-storey gable-fronted former vathouse, built c.1880, having four-bay elevation to north. Now disused. Recent metal pitched roof hidden behind parapet to front (east) elevation. Granite coping to front and south gables. Metal access deck at eaves level to north elevation. Brown brick walls having rusticated cut granite quoins and rock-faced rusticated snecked limestone to ground floor. Cast-iron and glass wall-mounted lamp to front elevation. Segmental-arched window openings to ground floor having brick surrounds and granite sills, now boarded-up. Square-headed blind openings to first floor having brick infill. Round-headed blind openings to second floor having brick surrounds, infill and granite sills. Oculus to front gable. Square-headed door opening to ground floor having rendered surround, now infilled with brick. Enclosed corrugated-iron-clad pedestrian bridge over Bellevue at second floor level. Limestone cobbles and tram tracks to street.

This building is part of the Guinness brewery that was founded in 1759 when Arthur Guinness acquired buildings south of James's Street from Mark Rainsford. The site was subsequently expanded in all directions. This area between Bellevue (also spelled Belview, and marked as Sugar House Lane on Rocque's map of Dublin) and Robert Street was listed as stores owned by Guinness in Thom's Directory of 1870. It was subsequently redeveloped by the Guinness Brewery before 1886. 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 the storage and maturation of beer. The use of blind openings provides order to the elevations, while skilled stonemasonry is evident in the limestone and granite detailing. The building retains its early industrial character.