house

Pair of terraced two-bay three-storey over basement houses, built c.1800. Pitched roof, hidden behind parapet to front (north) elevation, having cut granite coping. Brown brick chimneystack on party wall to west of no.66. Brown brick walls laid in Flemish bond. Painted cut granite plinth course over rendered walls to basement level. Square-headed window openings having cut stone sills with patent reveals and replacement aluminium windows. Round-arched door openings having plain columns and pilasters supporting a plain frieze and cornice. Replacement fanlights and timber panelled doors. Cut granite steps to shared entrance platform having cast-iron railings with corner-post to west side. Basement areas enclosed from pavement by cut granite plinth wall with cast-iron railings and recent gate. Recent external concrete stairs providing access from pavement to basement area.

This pair of houses makes an important contribution to the streetscape. The proportions and fenestration pattern are shared with neighbouring houses on Blessington Street resulting in a coherent streetscape. Early fabric survives in the structural brickwork and shared entrance platform. Blessington Street was laid out in the late 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.