Lifetime Lab

Detached split-level gable-fronted office, built c.1858, built as part of the Cork Corporation Waterworks and having five-bay single-storey east elevation. Now in use as commercial offices. Pitched slate roof clay ridge tiles, cast-iron rainwater goods and recent rooflights. Rendered walls with cut limestone plinth and moulded render plat band. Red brick walls with yellow brick string courses to upper floor of south elevation. Round-headed window openings with moulded render hood mouldings to east elevation, yellow brick hood moulding to south elevation, stone sills and replacement timber casement windows. Circular window to apex having yellow brick surround. Round-headed door opening to east elevation with moulded render hood moulding and replacement half-glazed timber door with fanlight. Square-headed door opening to south elevation, now blocked. Round-arched opening to east elevation with moulded render hood-moulding and replacement double-leaf timber battened doors.

Simple in design and small in stature in comparison to other buildings on site, this building is enlivened by the use of polychromatic brick to its south façade. The split-level form of the building is unusual and is an interesting adaptation to its sloping site. Cork Corporation Waterworks was the oldest continuously used municipal water supply site until its decommissioning in 1993. It is the best-preserved Victorian water pumping station in Ireland, though its earliest operations date to the 1760s, with water being pumped from the river into storage reservoirs in the hillside. The nineteenth-century saw the city growing at a significant rate, placing increasing pressure on its water supply. This particular part of the complex dates to the 1860s. It is an important part of the city’s civil engineering heritage.