Guinness Brewery

Attached three-bay two-storey brewery building, built c.1890, having canted bay window to front (east) elevation. Pitched slate roof. Brown brick walls laid in English bond. Recent brown brick wall to south elevation. Square-headed window openings having concrete lintels and sills and block-and-start brown brick reveals. Bipartite two-over-two pane timber sash windows and a single two-over-two timber sash window to first floor. Tripartite timber casement window to ground floor having decorative overlight. Sprocketed roof to bay window, one-over-one pane timber sash windows and timber framed windows, continuous concrete sill course and brick riser. Square-headed door opening to front elevation. Concrete steps to entrance.

This building is part of the Guinness Brewery that was founded in 1759 by Arthur Guinness with the purchase of brewery buildings south of Saint James's Gate from Mark Rainsford. The James's Street area was popular for distilling and brewing, as it had proximity to the City Watercourse, road access to farmland to provide grain, and later, proximity to the Grand Canal for transport of raw materials and the finished product. The brewery underwent extensive rebuilding in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Historic maps show part of the former Grand Canal basin to the west of this building, and the Guinness narrow gauge railway to the west. Domestic in scale, it makes an interesting contrast to the industrial buildings on the site, and may have provided accommodation or offices for receiving goods. The building retains its early form and character with surviving early fabric including brickwork and sash windows.