house

Terraced three-bay four-storey house over exposed basement, completed 1767. Now in use as offices. Recent conservatory to rear. Pitched artificial slate roof with hip to rear behind rebuilt red brick parapet wall with squared granite coping. Red brick and rendered chimneystacks with terracotta pots, shared with No. 30. Cast-iron rainwater goods throughout. Flemish bond red brick walls with granite string course to first floor over rusticated granite ashlar wall to ground floor. Squared granite plinth course over ruled-and-lined rendered wall to basement level. Rendered wall to rear elevation. Square-headed window openings to ground floor having channelled granite voussoirs. Gauged red brick flat-arched window openings to upper floors with rendered reveals. Granite sills throughout. Historic replacement timber sliding sash windows, six-over-six pane to basement, ground, first and second floors, and three-over-three pane to top floor. Cast-iron balconettes to first floor. Two-over-two and six-over six pane windows to rear. Round-headed window opening to rear elevation having replacement six-over-six pane window with fanlight. Round-headed door opening with raised render reveal to painted stone doorcase comprising engaged Ionic columns on plinth blocks supporting fluted frieze under replacement fanlight within rendered archivolt. Replacement timber door opening onto flagged platform with cast-iron bootscrapers and two nosed and re-clad granite steps to approach bridging basement. Approach flanked by wrought-iron railings with wrought and cast-iron panels inset and corner posts on replacement granite plinth.

Located on historic Parnell Square, this finely-proportioned townhouse with its pleasantly proportioned façade is an integral component of the streetscape, and was built by John Reid in 1767. The retention of various historic features including balconettes, a fine doorcase, historic sash windows and the pleasant rustication to the ground floor provide the building with a refined and early aspect. the Georgian characteristics of the house are evident in the proportions and the fenestration of diminishing windows. The contrast between the stone of the ground floor and basement and the brick of the upper floors is appealing. Parnell Square was the creation of Dr Bartholomew Mosse who, in 1748, leased four acres at the junction of three important sites: the Gardiner Estate, Sackville (now O’Connell) and Great Britain (now Parnell) Streets. There the New Gardens (now the Garden of Remembrance) were constructed, a landscaped tract of land with illuminated paths, obelisks and a loggia. Entrance fees to the gardens funded the construction of the Rotunda Hospital to the south, Mosse’s life ambition, and the success of the gardens precipitated the development of the surrounding square, largely by the hospital’s chief builders.