Henrietta Street Conservation Plan - The Heritage Council

change in the area and this will impact on the character of
Henrietta Street.
While the architectural and historical importance of Henrietta
Street is recognised by many, the general awareness of
Henrietta Street is quite poor in contrast, say to other areas of
Georgian Dublin such as the Squares – Merrion, Fitzwilliam,
Parnell and Mountjoy. Indeed, many people living in Dublin
are entirely unaware of Henrietta Street or, if aware, are not
able to locate it, either in reality or within their mental map of
the city. Thus one of the key objectives of the Conservation
Plan is to set out concisely the nature and extent of the
significance of Henrietta Street.
Other issues which the Conservation Plan aims to address
are guidance for repairs and conservation of the houses,
implementation of a management plan for the effective
maintenance of the street, the protection of the street by
influencing the nature of adjacent development and relevant
policy formation within the Dublin City Development Plan.
1.2 Scope of Conservation Plan
“The Conservation Plan is a process that seeks to guide the
future development of a place through an understanding of its
significance” 5 .
In accordance with the principles laid down in the ICOMOS
Burra Charter, and subsequent guidance documents,
including James Semple Kerr’s Guide to Conservation Plans
(ibid.) and the UK Heritage Lottery Fund’s Conservation Plans
for Historic Places (1996), this Conservation Plan aims to
provide the following:
• An understanding of an historic place and what is
significant about it
• Identification of issues which threaten to undermine or
devalue this significance
• Appropriate policies and recommendations to assist
in: managing the site; planning repairs or restoration;
planning new developments and, managing a
programme of regular maintenance.
In preparing a Conservation Plan a holistic and, often
multidisciplinary examination of the site is required, to ensure
that a full and broad understanding and assessment informs
the policies and recommendations. As part of the Plan
process, the various aspects of significance are described,
in addition to any conflicts which may exist between these.
Most important also is the identification of where gaps exist
in the current understanding of the site, to ensure inadvertent
damage does not occur as a result of this.
Finally, the Conservation Plan should enable the
consequences of any specific proposal to be assessed to
establish whether they will retain, or indeed enhance, the
significance of the site.
1.3 Methodology and Layout
The process and general sequencing of the Plan can be
summarised as follows:
• Gathering
Information/
- Survey of the Street, the buildings
and the urban context
Understanding
the Site
- Architectural Historical research;
urban history and contemporary
context research; legislation and
statutory policy review
• Consultation - Regular Steering Group meetings
- Meeting with Henrietta Street
Property Owners’ Group
- Meetings with property owners,
building occupants, other key
Informants and stakeholders
- Review of Written Submissions
(The consultation process is
described in more detail in
Chapter 2.0)
• Analysis and - Identify significance
Assessment - Prepare statement of significance
- Identify threats to significance
- Identify gaps in understanding and
any conflicts between different
significances
• Prepare - Identify categories for the policies
Policies - Identify policies to guide ongoing
issues
• Set out
guidance for
Implementation
and review
- Elicit from the policies what
actions are to be taken, identify
who should be charged to
implement the action and set out
time-frames for commencing/
completing actions.
The above suggests a sequence of actions carried out one
after the other. However, many ran concurrently and, indeed,
5 James Semple Kerr, (1996) The Conservation Plan: a guide to the preparation of Conservation Plans for places of European cultural
significance, 4th ed., The National Trust of Australia (NSW), Sydney.
12