CORK:Boat parking spaces used by Cork residents to navigate the city's waterways have been documented as part of a new architectural heritage booklet. The city resembled Venice before rivers running under the main business district, South Mall and St Patrick Street were covered over in the 18th century
Number 21 South Mall, a terraced three-storey over-basement Georgian house dating from 1790, includes an arched boat house at street level still in existence today.
The house is one of 2,779 properties listed in the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage booklet on the city’s built heritage.
“Cork was basically a series of little islands and most of the larger city streets are previously rivers. When you look at some of the buildings, you can see there was a place for them to pull in their boat, often underneath steps leading to the main entrance,” inventory senior architect Willie Cumming said.
The booklet, which marks the culmination of a project that began a decade ago, was launched by Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht Jimmy Deenihan at City Hall last night. Just under 5,700 sites were surveyed in the county, including north, east and western county regions.