People's Garden

Public recreational garden, established c.1865, within Phoenix Park. Enclosed by cast-iron railings and gates, and flint walled boundary. Northeast perimeter lower section has wall of roughly coursed flint rubble with remains of nosed granite capping, upper section comprises limestone wall and cast-iron railing on limestone and granite plinth. Secondary inner steel railing to southwest, Chesterfield Road area. Double trellis-style cast-iron gates to southwest, supported on matching trellis-work piers with wrought-iron scrolls, flanked by cast-iron railings. Standard cast-iron gate to northwest with decorative cast-iron piers set back off main pathway to southwest boundary along Chesterfield Avenue. Remainder of boundary wall consists of rock-faced limestone plinth wall supporting spear-headed wrought-iron railing, flanked by limestone rubble wall and again by cast-iron railings on granite plinth as part of formal gated entrance at North Circular Road and Infirmary Road. Primarily gravel, bitmac or cobbled path within garden. Located within mature landscaped grounds of Phoenix Park. Area within boundary includes Sean Heuston Monument, Carlisle Statue and Head Gardener’s Lodge.

An enclosed mid-nineteenth-century recreational garden located in Phoenix Park, laid out in 1864 to replace the earlier Promenade Ground, which dated from c.1840. The garden was intended to address the lack of public recreational space in Dublin, relative to other cities, and has been in more or less continued use since that time. Although there has been substantial renewal of boundary fabric over the years, several elements remain intact, including cast and wrought-iron railings and gates, and stone walling.