Dublin
Civic
Trust

The Project

The four-storey over basement building at 18 Ormond Quay was constructed in 1843 as a grocer’s shop with solicitors’ chambers and residence above. The building replaced at least two previous houses on the same site since construction first began on Ormond Quay in the 1680s. It features a rare arcaded granite shopfront that is thought to predate the 1840s reconstruction and may date to the 1780s when such shopfronts were popularised by the Wide Streets Commission, Georgian Dublin’s planning body.

Above the traditional ground floor shop is a three-bedroomed, three-storey residence that was completely refurbished using traditional skills and authentically decorated in the style of the mid-19^th century with Dublin-made wallpapers by David Skinner and decorative finishes. An older house dating to the 1760s is attached to the rear on Arran Street East and will be the future second phase of the restoration. Its interiors retain high quality rococo-style plasterwork and joinery dating to the mid-18^th century. Both buildings were converted into the Douglas Hotel in 1912 and were latterly known to a generation of Dubliner’s as Watt’s Bros. hunting and fishing purveyors who closed in the year 2000.

Conservation Works

Restoration was overseen by Kelly & Cogan conservation architects and Nolans Group historic building contractors.

Works involved significant structural stabilisation to the side gable wall which featured a dangerous lean into the side street. This was secured using a discreet system of metal ties and brick stitching to secure the wall back to the main structure.

130 square metres of cement-based 1970s pebbledash were removed from the brickwork of the upper facades using hand-held pneumatic tools. Traditional Irish ‘wigging’, a form of lime pointing traditionally used in Dublin to disguise rough brickwork, was reinstated based on a sole surviving sample discovered behind a street sign. The chimneys, truncated in the 1980s, were also rebuilt to their original height.

Interiors

The upstairs rooms are decorated in a combination of screen- and digitally-printed wallpapers by Irish wallpaper maker David Skinner. The dramatic acanthus leaf pattern in the first-floor parlour is based on an original 1841 design by James Boswell, paper-stainer of Bachelor’s Walk, which would have been available at the time of the building's completion in 1843 and is typical of the William IV/early Victorian style.

The second-floor front bedroom features a paper made by a paper-stainer by the name of Perrin manufactured on nearby Capel Street in 1854. The top floor bedrooms feature original patterns dating to the 1830s, with the front room’s colours altered to reflect the tones of the river Liffey outside the windows. See pictures at the end of this page.

Original floorboards on the first floor were relaid in their original position following the laying of structural boarding to consolidate the cellular integrity of the building - part of the wider engineering strategy. Boards were dark-stained in the fashion typical of the 1840s, while new boards were laid on the ground floor and top floor where decay and 20th-century replacements had destroyed most of the original fabric.

Carpet squares were common in the 1830s-1840s and this is the approach we have taken with certain rooms.

The rooms are simply furnished with mahogany and rosewood furniture, cut glass and effects that were fashionable in the second quarter of the 19th century.

Sash windows, casings and interior joinery were restored by specialists Lambstongue, conserving original material and splicing in new timber elements. The firm’s craftspeople rebuilt the lower portions of the stairs that had been removed a century earlier, replicating the original balusters and curved mahogany handrail.

Irish Fine Art Plasterwork conserved the original wall and ceiling plaster and reinstated missing cornices based on surviving fragments.

David O’Reilly of Antique Fireplace Restoration repaired and reinstated missing marble and cast-iron chimneypieces typical of 1840s Dublin houses. These include corbelled models in the grander rooms and bullseye examples in the bedrooms.

Peter Byrne undertook wallpapering, painting and decorative finishes including traditional 'scumble' graining to the architectural joinery.

Support 68 Arran Street East Conservation

We are now turning our attention to the conservation of the final portion of 18 Ormond Quay - the rear building known as 68 Arran Street East, for use as the offices of Dublin Civic Trust. This curious structure dates to c.1756 and was mostly likely built as an extension to the 1740s house that previously occupied the site of 18 Ormond Quay Upper. 

This building rises to four internal storeys over a vaulted brick basement, with a single room on each floor. These spaces contain fascinating decorative fragments from the mid-18th century including a high-status rococo cornice and lugged architectural joinery. We have already conserved and reinstated the original c.1750s-profiled timber sash windows, restored the facade to its hybrid 1750s/1840s appearance by removing the pebbledash from the Georgian brickwork, and conserved the 1840s Roman cement render at ground floor level - works assisted by the Heritage Counmcil Community Grants, the Built Heritage Investment Scheme and the Historic Structures Fund. 

As a non-state funded organisation, we need your support to continue the works. Any donation, large or small, will help us fulfill this ambition and contribute towards the restoration of a small but important sliver of dublin's architectural inheritance.

Your endorsement of our work is greatly valued. Find out more through the link below. 

DONATE ONLINE HERE