house

Semi-detached three-bay three-storey over basement house, built in 1859 as part of a planned, part-terraced, part semi-detached development of ten similarly styled properties. To the east elevation is a two-bay full-height projection. The façade is finished in unpainted roughcast, painted plain render to the basement level, granite quoins, parapet with projecting eaves course, and moulded surrounds to many of the openings. The slated hipped roof is largely hidden from view behind the parapet and has rendered chimneystacks with corbelling. The entrance is to the south elevation of the east projection and consists of a panelled timber door and semi-circular fanlight encased with a moulded surround; it is reached via a flight of stone steps. In general, the windows are flat-headed with two over two timber sash frames, though some of the second floor windows have replacement timber frames with top-hung openers. Most of the ground and first floor windows have relatively plain moulded surrounds, with projecting hood mouldings to those on the latter floor. There is a decorative wrought-iron balcony to the first floor of the front elevation with a smaller one to the east elevation. Cast-iron rainwater goods. The building faces onto a road but is separated from it by a relatively large garden, enclosed to the south by decorative cast-iron railings with matching gate and to the east by a tall rubble wall.

This large mid-Victorian residence is part of a grand, still largely intact grouping of similar houses, which, along with the contemporary Prince of Wales Terrace and Goldsmith Terrace, makes Quinsborough Road Bray’s most impressive thoroughfare. NOTE: The houses are labelled as "Dargan's Terrace" on the Ordnance Survey County Wicklow Bray Sheet IV.13.15 (1870). The houses, 'two pair of semi-detached villas and terraces of commodious dwelling-houses', were built for William Dargan (1799-1867) to designs by George Wilkinson (1814-90) of Dublin (The Dublin Builder 1st January 1859, 9).