Guinness Brewery

Attached three-bay three-storey gable-fronted vat house, built c.1800, having recent single-storey extension to west. Currently disused. Recent pitched metal roof behind parapet. Brick capping to front (north) parapet, cut granite capping to west and rear. Metal access deck to east parapet. Brown brick walls laid in Flemish bond to front, east and rear elevations, brickwork painted to rear elevation. Rendered walls to west elevation. Granite quoins to front elevation. Clock to front elevation. Double-height segmental-arched window opening to central bay front elevation flanked by square-headed window openings. Square-headed window openings to rear and east elevation. Round-arched window opening to west elevation first floor. Cut granite sills. Timber framed windows. Segmental-arched carriage arch to front elevation flanked by former carriage arches converted to windows, having recent metal and glass double leaf doors with side and overlights.

This vat house retains its early form and industrial character. Early fabric remains in the brickwork and timber windows and openings to the east elevation. Built as part of an early expansion phase, it is one of the earliest surviving buildings on site, along with the neighbouring vat house attached to the east. Vat houses were used to mature stout before delivery, and the construction of these two indicates the significant expansion of the brewery at the turn of the eighteenth century. These and the other early brewery buildings remained in use following the construction of Brewery 2 and the vat houses on Rainsford Street in the late nineteenth century, due to the high volume of production. At one time the largest brewery in the world, the Guinness Brewery complex is today the largest industrial site in the city centre.