The Printing House
The Printing House is a classical Palladian style temple building that was constructed within the campus of Trinity College Dublin around 1734 under the tenure of provost Richard Baldwin.
The building housed the Dublin University Press from its opening until 1976.
History
The building was likely executed by Richard Castle as his first solo commission although it may have originally been designed by Castle or Edward Lovett Pearce prior to his death in 1733.The builder is recorded as John Plummer, while other craftsmen included Moses Darley as stonecutter and Thomas Gilbert who was involved in procuring stone. Darley, Gilbert and Castle had all previously worked for Lovett Pearce on the nearby Parliament House, the first Palladian building of scale in Dublin.
The building is faced in rusticated imported Portland stone with a double-height pediment with prostyle tetrastyle portico to front. More modest local calp limestone is used for the sides of the building with the chimneys and bases of the columns in more sturdy lighter coloured Irish granite.
The building would have originally closed a pleached lime tree-lined avenue leading from the Thomas Burgh designed Anatomy House which was constructed circa 20 years prior but has since been demolished. It would have originally been to the rear of The Rubrics and Rotten Row.
John Sterne, Bishop of Clogher donated £1,000 towards the construction of the building and a plaque with a Latin dedication is still inscribed over the front door.
The building would have been notable for being one of the earliest Palladian style buildings in Dublin using a combination of Portland stone in the English Georgian tradition of the period as well as local materials from the Dublin region.