14 Henrietta Street - Georgian townhouse to tenement dwelling
b"When you enter 14 Henrietta Street you\\u2019ll experience over 300 years of city life in the walls of one address. By connecting to the personal stories of those who called 14 Henrietta Street home the building\\u2019s hidden histories are revealed. See the house, hear its stories and discover the layers of Dublin history within its walls. History of the house Henrietta Street is the most intact collection of early to mid-18th century houses in Ireland. Work began on the street in the 1720s when houses were built as homes for Dublin\\u2019s most wealthy families. By 1911 over 850 people lived on the street, over 100 of those in one house, here at 14 Henrietta Street. The 1700s Numbers 13-15 Henrietta Street were built in the late 1740s by Luke Gardiner. Number 14\\u2019s first occupant was The Right Honorable Richard, Lord Viscount Molesworth and his second wife Mary Jenney Usher, who gave birth to their two daughters in the house. Subsequent residents over the late 18th century include The Right Honorable John Bowes, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Sir Lucius O\\u2019Brien, John Hotham Bishop of Clogher, and Charles 12th Viscount Dillon. Number 14, like many of the houses on Henrietta Street, follows a room layout that separated its public, private and domestic functions. The house is built over five floors, with a railed-in basement, brick-vaulted cellars under the street to the front, a garden and mews to the rear, and there was originally a coach house and stable yard beyond. In the main house, the principal rooms in use were located on the ground and first floors. On these floors, a sequence of three interconnecting rooms are arranged around the grand two-storey entrance hall with its cascading staircase. On the ground floor were the family rooms which consisted of a street parlour to the front, a back eating parlour, a dressing room or bed chamber for the Lord of the house, and a closet. On the first floor level, the piano nobile (or noble floor), were the formal public reception rooms. A drawing room to the front is where the Lord or Lady would host visitors, along with the dining room to the back. The dressing room or bed chamber for the lady of the house, and a closet were also on this floor. Family bedrooms were located on the floor above the piano nobile, and the servants quarters were located in the attic. A second back stairs would have provided access to all floor levels for family and servants alike. These grand rooms began as social spaces to display the material wealth, status and taste of its inhabitants. Dublin\\u2019s Georgian elites developed a taste for expensive decoration, fine fabrics, and furniture made from exotic materials, such as \\u2018walnuttree' and mahogany."