The Old Dublin Restaurant

Attached pair of two-bay three-storey houses, built c.1900, having early twentieth-century shopfronts to front (west) elevation. Formerly in use as shops and as restaurant. Hipped roofs, perpendicular to street, with red brick chimneystacks hidden behind parapet wall with granite coping and some cast-iron rainwater goods. Red brick walls laid in Flemish bond to front elevation. Yellow brick walls laid in English garden wall bond to south elevation. Square-headed window openings to upper floors having brick reveals and two-over-two timber sash windows and timber casement windows. Painted stone sills to first floor, continuous carved granite sill course to second floor. Pair of shopfronts, each having brick pilasters with brick bases and fluted brackets framing timber fascia with cornice. Square-headed openings with display windows having timber mullions supported on timber panelled stall risers. Square-headed door openings with timber panelled doors and louvers.

This substantial building is characteristic of a period of commercial prosperity witnessed by Francis Street at the turn of the century. It retains an imposing double shopfront with attractive joinery elements. Of special note is the tongue-and-groove timber panelled stall riser and mullioned display windows. The building replaced a tenement (No. 90) and rag stores (No. 91) recorded on the site in the 1860s. The machine made brickwork with sharp arrises is typical of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the specially shaped brick voussoirs, once a common sight, are rarely used in newer brick buildings.