Dublin’s Belgravia
Passion coloured townhouse in D6 with Dublin Castle cornices
14 BELGRAVE SQUARE EAST
Rathmines, Dublin 6 Asking price: €1.575m Agent: Sherry FitzGerald (01) 4966066
NOISY student parties are never an issue today at Belgrave Square in Rathmines, which was once the epicentre of Dublin college flatland, and therefore of Dublin student party life. When the owners of No14 bought their Victorian town house in 1990, it was divided into 11 flats and bedsits, in the same way that the majority of the houses on the Square were split back then.
Today, after 30 years of gentrification, just one house remains in flats, with all the rest having been returned to private single-home use. That said, even today, most people of a certain age will forever recall Belgrave for the six-pack-fuelled festivities it was renowned for. Today dinner parties are more likely.
Belgrave Square’s origins are further away again, as the residential power base of Dublin unionism from the 1850s until the 1930s. Among those involved in its foundation was the architect Edward Henry Carson, the father of Ulster unionist leader Lord Edward Carson.
It was renamed to mirror its more famous namesake, at the centre of Belgravia, London, itself at the heart of British political society and power.
Formerly farms attached to the Meath Estate, the lands had been let on 999year leases to its entrepreneur founders, who were at the heart of driving the 19th-century Rathmines Township project, an attempt to create a new ‘loyal’ Dublin outside its boundaries.
This happened in the aftermath of Emancipation and expansion of the vote franchise, which enabled Catholic Nationalists to take over the City Council and increase taxes on wealthier residents. The new unionist Protestant local government, based in Rathmines town hall, set out developing the areas rural lanes for families from the city to move to. Rates were low, on account of the roads, homes and footpaths being relatively new and there being few poor families requiring local authority support.
The union-minded families who moved here were as much embracing lower taxation as they were their British identity. Among them were the Carsons. Lord Edward was born in Harcourt Street but moved to Sarzy Lodge in the Township as a child.
Work on Belgrave Square commenced in the 1850’s after land owners John Holmes and Graves Holbrook got together with John Jones the builder, Carson Snr the architect and Hugh Morrison the developer to apply for the right to build a new residential square.
This cabal of property businessmen pulled off a coup that crooked Irish councillors of recent past years would be proud of. As they were making applications to the new Township Commission to develop and to persuade the Township to take over the cost of servicing common areas, this group was also at the other end, making those decisions. Around this point, almost all of this group also sat on the Town Commission. Granting permissions for their own endeavours vastly inflated the value of their holdings, along with the resulting homes.
At the same time their political influence brought other high-brow Commission members to live in the Square. According to its deeds, the first occupant of No14 was an Anglican Bishop.
When the current owners acquired the house 30 years ago, those vestiges of privilege had long dissipated and No14 was home to those who most likely existed on beans and toast. The house had been subdivided, sometimes gauchely. In the attic they found a peculiar flat in which a lone bath tub had been suspended high above the floor, supported by a roughly built trestle.
But while the flatland years brought superficial damage, the crafted decorative original features at its core remained miraculously intact, not least the two fabulous marble chimney-pieces in the interlinking receptions. And there are still servant bell pushes either side of them.
This first floor is today almost exactly as it would have been when the Bishop first walked in, with all its decorative ceiling work, joinery and floor boards.
It was a different story on the next floor up where, once flatland partitions were removed, a good number of floorboards would need replacing and so too would cornicing work which was damaged.
Floorboards of the period were salvaged from the old Mercer’s Hospital while a refurb of Dublin Castle (which surely wouldn’t be allowed today), yielded replacement original cornicings which now grace the master bedroom.
Today the epicentre of this restored home is the ground floor, where the servants were once based. There’s a modern family room with a Wilders wallmounted fire overlooking the garden.
The latter stretches to an incredible 157 feet in length, unusual even for a period house in this area.
There’s a big kitchen living room with a Britannia double oven and six-ring gas hob. There’s a utility room with a Belfast sink.
Upstairs the main hall has a decorative arch and ceiling work, and here you’ll find the two grand receptions painted in Passion (the paint colour tone). There’s also a main bathroom with a jacuzzi and a sauna, and the fourth bedroom is here.
There’s a wonderful stained-glass landing panel and three large bedrooms, and the master is ensuite.
It’s now for sale with Sherry FitzGerald seeking €1.575m. And while the Township cabal are long gone, each morning its new owners will wake to the ornate cornicing taken from the heart of the former seat of Empire in Ireland.