house

End-of-terrace two-bay four-storey house, built c.1760, as one of three similar houses, with shopfront inserted to ground floor. Pitched slate roof with ridge set perpendicular to street and hipped behind front parapet wall with concrete coping. Painted red brick walls laid in Flemish bond returning as brick quoins to west rendered side elevation. Gauged brick flat-arched window openings with painted granite sills and replacement aluminium windows. Replacement glazed shopfront spanning ground floor with replacement timber fascia. Rear elevation abutted by flat-roofed three-storey rendered extension and fronting onto Jervis Lane Upper with original diorite setts.

Mary Street was laid out by Sir Humphrey Jervis (1630-1707), Lord Mayor of Dublin in 1681-3, who laid out the area around Saint Mary’s Abbey after buying much of this estate in 1674. Built as one of three similar townhouses, No. 58 has had much external fabric replaced but retains its fenestration pattern, vertical emphasis and overall composition. As one of a rare group of eighteenth-century townhouses on this largely commercial streetscape, the building is a reminder of the former residential character of the street and greatly contributes to the variety of building types on this historic street.