Henrietta Street Conservation Plan - The Heritage Council

Fig.5.3.2 No.3, coved, bowed ceiling
with rococo plasterwork
Fig.5.3.1 No.3, elevation Fig.5.3.3 No.4, elevation
of Henrietta Street. Those built in the north-side Gardiner estate
have been since profoundly compromised. These include
a great number of losses to the interiors in Rutland (Parnell)
Square as well as whole swathes of demolitions in Mountjoy
Square. The survival of the south-side squares, Merrion Square
and Fitzwilliam Square, of course represents one of the most
important architectural riches from that era. However the
street which most closely matched Henrietta Street in lay-out
and scale, i.e. Upper Merrion Street, has lost all of one side to
Aston Webb’s College of Science, now the Taoiseach’s Office
and Government Buildings, and so lacks the architectural
and historical integrity of its north-side rival. The houses on
Merrion Square itself are much smaller in general than those on
Henrietta Street (averaging 30ft in width, while the smallest in
Henrietta Street is 37ft wide) and once again far fewer of them
have retained anything like the consistency of early and later
18th-century interiors still to be found in the north side street.
Henrietta Street remained the “most fashionable single street
in Dublin till the Union” despite the grand developments on
the south side in the second half of the 18th century. Viewed
both as a street, and from the point of view of a collection of
individual houses, Henrietta Street remains the single most
important architectural collection in the city.
5.3 Architectural Quality of the Henrietta
Street Houses
No. 3 (fig.5.3.1)
Built some time after c.1755, the plot, on which this house was
built, had gone through a succession of lettings from c. 1740:
from Luke Gardiner to Nathaniel Clements to John Baron
Maxwell, M.P. for Cavan, before it was first occupied by the
latter’s son-in-law Owen Wynne, who was M.P. for Sligo. This
very large, four bay, four storey over basement house, has
retained its original bright red brick which however is in poor
condition. The original (c.1755) very fine Doric pedimented
door case and the original wrought-iron railings have also
survived. Some remnants of the rear-garden and mews, which
might be re-integrated with the house, remains intact. The
staircase was removed in 1830. However the first-floor eastern
rear room is “of exceptional quality” containing an intact
coved rococo ceiling of some importance (fig 5.3.2). Other
stucco features and elements of the original joinery, such as
the lugged door architraves, also survive in various locations
throughout the house.
No. 4 (fig.5.3.3)
This is a substantial, four bay, four storey over basement
house with a brick façade (in excellent condition) and a
stone plinth at basement level which is shared with Nos.
5 and 6. Built c.1745, the house was considerably altered
c.1780 in a neo-classical style that might be attributable to
James Wyatt. The door case, staircase and other substantial
window and interior joinery and plaster work, as well as the
entire rear elevation, belong to the alterations carried out at
that date. There is an elegant Portland stone Ionic aedicular
door case, which retains its original door, and very fine
ironwork with alternating spear and arrowheads flanking the
doorway. The scrollwork at the side of the door is of a more
recent date. The 1780s stair hall, with its Portland flagged
floor, and 1740s chimneypiece, contains a 1780s mahogany
balustraded staircase “in superb condition”. The secondary
stone staircase, which also survives, is top-lit by a central
compartment on the east side of the house. Suites of rooms
on the ground and first floor, decorated in a consistent and
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