Guinness Brewery

Corner-sited nine-bay two-storey vat house, built c.1920, having nine-bay south elevation and recent metal exposed vats to south-east corner. Flat roof hidden behind parapet to front (east) and south elevations. Granite capping. Yellow brick walls having cut rusticated granite quoins and cut snecked limestone to ground floor. Cast-iron and glass wall-mounted lamps to front elevation. Square-headed blind openings to first floor having brick infill and sills. Segmental-arched blind openings to ground floor having brick surrounds, rendered infill and granite sills. Limestone cobblestone to part of Bellevue streetscape.

This building is part of the Guinness Brewery that was founded in 1759 south of Saint James's Gate, and subsequently expanded on all sides. The brewery was redeveloped in the late nineteenth century, and several vat houses and grain storehouses were built to accommodate the increased production, 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 front elevation while skilled stonemasonry is evident in the limestone and granite detailing. The building retains much of early industrial character, despite the loss of its pitched roofs.