house

Pair of mid-terrace two-bay four-storey over basement houses, built c.1800, having three-storey flat-roofed returns to rear. Now in use as flats. Pitched M-profile roof, hipped to east end, hidden behind parapet to front (south) elevation with cut granite coping to no.14 and concrete coping to no.15. Stepped rendered chimneystacks. Some cast-iron rainwater goods. Rendered walls having cut granite plinth course to ground floor. Brown brick walls laid in English garden wall bond to rear, rendered walls to returns. Square-headed window openings having painted cut stone sills. Patent reveals to front windows of no.15. Replacement uPVC windows. Round-headed door openings having engaged Ionic columns supporting a fluted frieze with paterae and cornice to no.15, replacement timber surround to no.14. Plain fanlights. Timber panelled doors. Tiled steps and entrance platform to no.15 with recent metal railings. Concrete steps and platform to no.14 having metal railings. Basement areas enclosed from pavement level by cut granite plinth wall with metal railings and gates. Access from pavement level to basement areas by recent external concrete stairs.

This pair of houses makes an important contribution to the streetscape of Blessington Street. Although recently altered they maintain a number of early features such as the door surround to no.15, and they share proportions and characteristics with their neighbours, with a diminishing window pattern typical of the Georgian era. Blessington Street was laid out at the end of the eighteenth century, appearing in the alphabetical list of streets in Wilson's Dublin Directory for the first time in 1795. It terminates to the west end at Blessington Street Basin, constructed in 1810 as a city reservoir supplied from the nearby canal, it is now a public park.