shop/retail outlet

Attached six-bay four-storey commercial block, built 1859-62, having recent shopfront to ground floor. Hipped roof to east, flat to rear (west), concealed behind rendered parapet, with replacement rainwater goods mounted on projecting replacement cornice with replacement downpipe breaking through to north elevation. Painted rendered walling with stucco dressings, including continuous stringcourse over top floor openings, and continuous sill courses to top two floors, moulded to second floor. Segmental-headed window openings to top two floors, with smaller double openings to top floor, and having raised architraves with keystones, scroll-lugs to base of top floor openings, and hood-cornices to second floor. Square-headed openings to first floor, with lugged architraves, surmounted by triangular pediments on scrolled consoles. Windows are replacement timber sliding sash, one-over-one pane to top floor, two-over-two pane to second floor, and replacement casement to first floor. Forms part of retail complex comprising Nos. 1-5 Clarendon Street, Nos. 38-44 Wicklow Street and Nos. 88-95 Grafton Street.

This mid nineteenth-century commercial premises, previously known as Commercial Hall, was built in an Italianate style to the designs of Rawson Carroll as the new drapery premises for Switzer, Ferguson and Son which later rebranded as Switzer and Company. Successive alterations and extensions were carried out during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1995 the complex was remodelled for Brown Thomas, the alterations to the ground floor including a cohesive shopfront unifying the disparate buildings within the retail complex. Despite such alterations, and some loss of historic fabric, the main façade is a focal point within the historic streetscape of Grafton Street and contributes to the rich and diverse character of the area.