shop/retail outlet

Attached six-bay four-storey commercial building over concealed basement, built 1905-6, with pilasters to end bays and flanking middle pair of bays, and having three shopfronts to front (east) elevation. Hipped roof, hidden behind curved brick parapet with limestone coping having ball finials, red brick chimneystacks with clay pots, and square-profile cast-iron rainwater goods to north and south ends. Red brick walls to upper floors, laid in Flemish bond, with brick pilasters having limestone bases, vitrified brick bands across windows, dentillated red brick stringcourse under top floor, angled red brick stringcourse under second floor, and with moulded limestone cornice under first floor doubling as sill course. First floor has square-headed window openings with chamfered voussoirs and reveals, second floor has segmental-headed openings with chamfered brick voussoirs and reveals, and limestone sills, and top floor has round-headed openings with moulded brick voussoirs and limestone sills, all openings having replacement casement frames. Masonry shopfront to ground floor comprising marble pilasters with fluted limestone consoles supporting cornice/sill course, with mouldings to tops and bottoms of plinths, and with replacement shopfront fittings.

This fine commercial building, dating to the turn of the twentieth century, was designed by H.J. Lundy for Hafner’s Butchers. The builders were Builder: J. & P. Good. The combination of Portmarnock brick, Skerries limestone and Peterhead granite provides textural and tonal variation. The ornate shopfront is one of the highlights of the building. The street was subject to a significant phase of rebuilding in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and is now dominated by modest Italianate brick retail and office buildings. The busy commercial street attracted a number of significant businesses, including Pim Brothers, Dockrells, Woolworths and Bewley's.