Victoria Hotel, St. Patrick's Street - Eason's Book Shop

Southgate Associates acted as heritage and conservation specialist on the adaptive reuse of the Victoria Hotel to a new retail space on the main shopping street of Cork City, occupied on completion by Eason's bookshop. Project management was provided by ARUP, a modern shop front design in Kilkenny Limestone was provided by Grafton Architects, and Summerhill Construction acted as the main contractor.

Following initial investigations on site in October 2021, an original Cork limestone facade was discovered under thick layers of waterproof paint. Southgate Associates specified specialist conservation cleaning techniques to expose the stonework, together with the scholarly restoration of the sash windows, re-roofing and lead detailing.

An exacting pointing regime was carried out, to address the micro-grouting of fine joints in the ashlar stonework to ensure that damp ingress was prevented, which the waterproof paint had been designed to prevent. This was followed by stripping inappropriate cement renders on the Cook Street elevations and re-rendering in woodfloat lime render. In addition, there was the restoration of the chimney stack, and of the iron weathervane.

The finished building was awarded the 'Judges Award' of the Cork Business Association's 'Better Building Awards 2022'.