house

Pair of terraced two-bay three-storey over basement former houses, built c.1800, now in use as flats. Pitched roofs hidden behind parapet to front (north) elevation with cut granite coping. Rendered chimneystack. Brown brick walls laid in Flemish bond. Recent red brick to first and second floors of no.69. Cut granite plinth course over rendered walls to basement level of no.70, render removed from basement to no.69. Square-headed window openings having patent reveals and painted cut stone sills. Six-over-six pane timber sash windows. Round-arched door openings, having painted masonry surrounds with engaged columns supporting a fluted frieze with paterae and cornice. Timber panelled door to no.69, recent flush metal door to no.70. Plain fanlights. Cut granite steps to entrance platforms having cast-iron railings. Basement areas enclosed from pavement by cut granite plinth wall with metal railings and gates. Recent concrete and metal external stairs provide access from pavement to basement areas.

This pair of houses makes an important contribution to the streetscape. Their proportions and details are shared with neighbouring properties on Blessington Street resulting in a coherent streetscape. Early fabric survives in the door surrounds and structural brickwork, entrance platforms and boundary treatments. 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.