HENRIETTA STREET AND IT’S DOORS – AT THE BEGINNING OF 2021
New Year’s Day was my birthday so I did not bother to take any photographs but on the next day I decided to begin my 2021 programme by photographing the doors of Henrietta Street [I live here] using an Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max because this is the camera that I intend for much of 2021. I have already booked week long visits to Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford and Killkenny but of course I may have to cancel some or all of my bookings.
I am now trying to decide if I will bring my Sony cameras with me when I travel or will I, as an experiment, depend on the iPhone.
Henrietta Street is a Dublin street, to the north of Bolton Street on the north side of the city, first laid out and developed by Luke Gardiner during the 1720s. A very wide street relative to streets in other 18th-century cities, it includes a number of very large red-brick city palaces of Georgian design.
Henrietta Street is the earliest Georgian Street in Dublin, and at the forefront of Dublin’s later Georgian streetscapes. Construction on the street started in the mid-1720s, on land bought by the Gardiner family in 1721. Construction was still taking place in the 1750s. Gardiner had a mansion, designed by Richard Cassels, built for his own use around 1730.
The street was popularly referred to as Primate’s Hill, as one of the houses was owned by the Archbishop of Armagh, although this house, along with two others, was demolished to make way for the Law Library of King’s Inns.
The street fell into disrepair during the 19th and 20th centuries, with the houses being used as tenements. While the houses on Henrietta Street had been home to a small number of wealthy residents in the 18th century, these were given-over to tenement use during the 19th century, and by 1911 there were 835 people living in poverty in just 15 houses. A number of houses on the street remained in use as tenements until the 1970s.[6] In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the street has been subject to restoration efforts.
The street has been used as a period-location for film and TV companies, with productions filmed including Albert Nobbs, Inspector George Gently and Foyle’s War.
The street is a cul-de-sac, with the Law Library of King’s Inns facing onto its western end. As of 2017, there are 13 houses on the street. One of these houses, 14 Henrietta Street, was opened as a museum in late 2018. 14 Henrietta Street tells the story of the building and of the lives of the people who lived there.
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