house

Semi-detached pair of three-bay two-storey houses over raised basements, built c. 1880, having three-storey over basement to rear (east) elevation. Now in use as apartments. Hipped artificial slate roofs with red brick chimneystacks, some terracotta ridge cresting and with corbelled eaves course to front. Red brick walls to front elevation, laid in Flemish bond and having cut granite quoins, cut granite plinth course over snecked granite walls to basement level, and with lined-and-ruled rendered walls to other elevations. Square-headed window openings with cut granite sills and replacement windows, having red brick block-and-start surrounds to front basement. Round-headed stair windows to rear elevation, these and ground floor windows to south elevation having cast-iron balconettes. Round-headed porch openings comprising chamfered brick arch supported on painted colonnettes with individualised carved capitals, timber panelled door within porch set in carved timber surround with plain over-lights, tiled floor and plastered ceiling. Cut granite thresholds and shared flight of steps, having wrought-iron railings. carparks to front and rear. Cast-iron railings to front boundary, square-plan rendered piers with pointed caps, gates missing. Set back from east side of Castle Avenue, near junctions with Victoria Road and Kincora Avenue.

This pair is representative of the suburban developments in Clontarf in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The raised ground floor is typically Victorian, as is the extensive use of red brick and the ornately detailed doorcases. The capitals are all different and naturalistic, typical of the Arts and Crafts movement of the late nineteenth century. The retention of cast-iron railings creates an intact street boundary, augmenting the patina of age of the streetscape. Castle Avenue was the home to large country villas such as Elm View and Grace Ville, as well as Clontarf Castle, all large houses set back from the road on sites of an acre or more.