House — 16th/17th century in Unknown Townland

Dutch Billy style house built up against or in close proximity to the northern wall of St Patrick’s Cathedral (DU018-020269-) located off centre to the east that is depicted on James Malton’s 1793 watercolour of the northern façade of St Patrick’s Cathedral (Malton 1797). The house depicted in this watercolour consists of a two storey high building with gable fronted dormer attic with tall chimney stacks rising high above the roofline of the house which was entered through a flat headed doorway with triangular-shaped pediment in the centre of the northern façade. Above the doorway at dormer level there is a curvilinear fronted pediment with ball shaped hood-terminals of typical 17th-century Dutch style architecture known locally as ‘Dutch Billys’. The windows have six over six sash window panes, with external wooden shutter for window at ground floor level to the west of the central doorway. A possible second doorway with overhanging wooden porch visible at the west end of this house which suggests that there were at least two houses in this range of terraced buildings.  One of these houses may have belonged to a Mrs Osborne whose name is annotated in this area on a map drawn in 1890 by the Cathedral Architect, Thomas Drew (Drew 1891). This map was based on an earlier map drawn in 1750, known as Kendrick’s map.   Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien