Chapter VII

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[Illustration: VIEW IN THE COLLEGE PARK--LIBRARY--ENGINEERING SCHOOL.]

ST. PATRICK’S WELL LANE--THE COLLEGE PARK.

In the year 1688, a most interesting monument of antiquity in Dublin was demolished to make way for City improvements. The old Danish _Thingmote_, or Parliament Hill, an artificial mound some forty feet high, that stood on the spot now partially occupied by the new Ulster Bank, and not a hundred yards from the Provost’s House, was levelled with the ground.[166] And the earth of the old mound, as it was removed, was carted away and thrown down in front of a poor street, St. Patrick’s Well Lane, facing the dreary and neglected expanse of waste land that is now the College Park. The street so widened and levelled was called--in honour of William of Orange Nassau, Protestant King of England--Nassau Street. The College authorities soon afterwards built a high brick wall on the boundary between the City and the College property; and the level of the street, in consequence of the immense accumulation of added soil from the _Thingmote_, was left, as it now is, some six feet higher than that of the College land which adjoins it. The College Park was first laid out and planted with elm and plane trees in 1722; and in the same year a wall was built on the north-eastern boundary of the College grounds, with a gateway and lodge for a porter.[167]

For over a hundred years there was no great change of any kind, either in the Park or in its surroundings; but in 1842, one of the greatest improvements that has been made for the last half-century in the Dublin streets was effected by the College authorities, who pulled down the ugly brick wall of 1688, and supplied its place by the present fine granite wall, surmounted by a round coping and a handsome iron railing, which marks the boundary of the College Park on the north side of Nassau Street. The stonework is four feet six inches in height; the railing rises about seven feet higher, and is the work of the once well-known firm of William Turner & Co. And about the time this most admirable change was made, Nassau Street was still further improved by the demolition of some houses and shops, of which the leases fell in to the College, at the north-west corner of the street, and a considerable slice of ground was given up by the College to the City to widen and improve the street. The new stables--of fine cut granite--attached to the Provost’s House were erected at the same time. Nassau Street, thus raised, as it were, by favour of the University, from a third-rate to a first-rate street, became and continued for some considerable time to be the chosen afternoon resort of fashionable Dublin. But of late, although the street has been greatly improved by new buildings and high-class shops, it is neglected by the smart pleasure-seekers, who have to a great extent abandoned the town for more attractive residences in the suburbs. And a place of public meeting--like Hyde Park or the Boulevards, the Prater or the Prado, the Corso or the Rambla, Unter den Linden or even “Under the Trees”--is one of the most marked wants of modern social Dublin.

Under the granite wall and railings of 1842, just within the Fellows’ Garden, and opposite the northern end of Dawson Street, is the old Holy Well of St. Patrick, a sacred spring from which St. Patrick’s Well Lane took its earlier name; now neglected and ill-cared for, but once the most celebrated holy well in Dublin, and the resort of numerous pilgrims and devotees from all parts of Ireland. At the extreme south-east corner of the College precincts, opening on to Lincoln Place, is a handsome granite gateway, with large iron gates and a porter’s lodge in cut stone, erected in 1855, in place of a mean doorway familiarly known as “The Hole in the Wall.” This entrance, which affords the most convenient access to all Collegians residing in the east and south-east, at present the more fashionable quarters of the town, is of special advantage to the Medical students, whose Lecture Rooms and Laboratories are situated just inside the gate. When these were completed in 1888, the ground between them and the gate was newly laid out and planted. And it is proposed, on the falling in of the leases of the row of houses between the Lincoln Place gate and the east end of the granite wall and railings in Nassau Street, to pull down the houses and shops, and continue the railings up to the gate in Lincoln Place, a distance of 120 yards; an improvement which will be equally great both to the College and the adjacent City property. One of the most striking views of the College grounds is from the windows of Kildare Street Club, the finest house in Nassau Street, and itself a striking object as seen from the College Park.

THE MEDICAL SCHOOL.

[Illustration: THE MEDICAL SCHOOL.]

The Medical School, which is shown in the illustration on p. 229, was built in 1886, from the designs of Mr. J. M‘Curdy (who died in that year), developed by Mr. Thomas Drew, under whose supervision the entire work was carried out. The site is one of the finest, and would be, perhaps, the finest in the College, were it not for the ugly back view of a building in dull grey cement, put up for the accommodation of the Cricket Club, that shuts off the view of and from the College Park. The Medical School has a frontage of 140 feet to the west, and two wings, extending 150 feet eastward, at right angles to the façade. The whole of this 440 feet is in fine cut granite. The main door is in the centre of the principal elevation, and three tiers of fourteen windows, those in the first and third stories being square, those in the second story round-headed, are disposed in pairs, without ornamentation or special architectural feature of any kind. Yet the building, if somewhat severe in character, is appropriate to the objects for which it is destined, and is, as a whole, entirely satisfactory. For six feet from the ground the masonry is of rustic ashlar; from thence to the eaves, fine cut granite. Behind the building, and enclosed by the wings, is a yard containing the pumping engine, by which the Park is kept dry even in the wettest weather. The water is drained into a reservoir, and pumped from thence through iron pipes into the river Liffey, which at low tide only is some feet below the College Park. In comparatively recent times all this part of the grounds was swampy, and in wet winters impassable. And that part of the Park between the Museum and the New Square is still called the Wilderness. To the north of the yard of the Medical School, and separated by six feet from the north wing of the Museum, is the Histological Laboratory, built in 1880. It is 85 feet long by 30 feet broad, with two tiers of seven windows, alternately square and round headed, looking to the north.

[Illustration: THE MUSEUM (TENNIS COURT).]

THE ANATOMICAL MUSEUM.

The Anatomical Museum, built in 1875-6 from the design of Mr. J. M‘Curdy, for a long time architect to the College, is placed some seventy feet to the north of the Medical School, has a façade of 150 feet looking west, and a depth of forty-five feet. It is constructed of cut granite, without ornament or special features. Two doors and nine windows on the ground floor are surmounted by eleven windows on the upper story, all square, simple, solid, and harmonious. In this building are found the Museum collections both of Anatomy and of Natural History, and on the ground floor is the Anthropometric Laboratory, where measurements and records are taken on a somewhat more extended plan than that introduced by Captain Francis Galton at South Kensington. And a metric system of notation has been adopted similar to that in use on the Continent of Europe, especially in Paris, and lately introduced into the Anthropometric Department of the Military Medical School at Washington.

[Illustration: THE DISSECTING ROOM.]

The Anatomical School presents the great advantage of having all its Lecture Rooms and Laboratories on the ground floor.

The Dissecting Room is large, well lighted, and well ventilated--so spacious and so well arranged that three hundred students can work at the same time without inconvenience. It is in every respect well suited for the work that is carried on, and presents none of that dinginess so generally characteristic of rooms of the kind. It is lighted by the electric light. The floor is of oak parquet. Round the walls are a series of cases, in which are placed permanent typical specimens, which are largely used by the students. Every inch of wall space above these cases is made use of for framed plates and diagrams appropriate to the subjects, and in the centre of the room on lofty pedestals stand two statues, the Venus of Milo and the Boxer, bearing witness to the fact that Anatomy has artistic as well as medical aspects.

The Bone Room and the Lecture Theatre are entered directly from the Dissecting Room. The Bone Room is a lofty room surrounded by a gallery. On the floor, osteological specimens are arranged in revolving cases on long narrow tables. Few anatomical departments can boast of so numerous and so varied an assortment of teaching preparations. The gallery is chiefly devoted to specimens which bear upon the applications of anatomy to the practice of medicine. It is here also that are displayed (1) the large series of models prepared in the department to illustrate cerebral growth and the cranio-cerebral topography of the child and the adult; (2) the series of models representing the anatomy of inguinal hernia, also prepared in the department; (3) the mesial sections of the four anthropoid apes--gorilla, chimpanzee, orang, and gibbon--preparations which are unique. The Theatre is capable of seating 400 students. It is not handsome; but it is comfortable and, most important of all, its acoustic property admirably well adapted for the purpose for which it was designed. There are also a Museum of Surgical and Medical Pathology, and one of Materia Medica.

THE CHEMICAL SCHOOL.

The Chemical Department adjoins the Medical School, and is in the southern part of the buildings, just within the Lincoln Place gate of Trinity College. The new Lecture Theatre of the School is situated between two groups of Laboratories, and is fitted with all modern appliances for lecture-illustration in the various branches of Chemical Science. The seats are numbered, and are assigned in the order of entry for the different courses of lectures. Behind the Lecture Theatre is a large Demonstration Room, fitted with Assay and Cupelling furnaces and other apparatus, and beyond are the Laboratories for Qualitative Analysis and Preparation. These consist of four lofty and well-ventilated rooms, capable of accommodating 112 students, who work at compartments fully provided with the necessary apparatus tests and materials. Off the larger room of this series are (1) a special sulphuretted-hydrogen chamber, with separate ventilation, (2) a general store, and (3) cases of apparatus used at lectures. These Laboratories, as well as the Lecture Theatre and other rooms, are heated by means of hot water pipes, and the special ventilation required for carrying off fumes, &c., from the different compartments is obtained by the powerful draught of a chimney stack, sixty feet high, connected with the furnace of the heating apparatus. The Quantitative and Research Laboratories and their related rooms are at the east front of the new buildings. The main Laboratory is a fine room, provided with all modern appliances, and adjoining it are special rooms for (_a_) Balances and other instruments of precision, together with the special apparatus required for Quantitative Analysis; (_b_) for Organic Analysis; (_c_) for Pressure Tube work; (_d_) for Gas and Water Analysis, and for Spectrum Analysis. In addition to all these there is a Chemical Museum, containing a great variety of specimens for use at lectures, and everything that is required for the prosecution of the various researches conducted in the School. The Professor’s Rooms and private Laboratory are on the floor immediately above the Quantitative Laboratory, and in direct communication with all the departments.[168]

[Illustration: THE PRINTING OFFICE.]

[Illustration: PULPIT NOW IN DINING HALL, ONCE IN OLD CHAPEL.]

FOOTNOTES:

[139] Stubbs’ _History of the University of Dublin_, pp. 5, 6.

[140] Stubbs, _op. cit._ p. 7.

[141] Stubbs, _op. cit._ pp. 11, 12.

[142] Derived by Gilbert from a Hoge--a small sepulchral mound.

[143] Hoggen Green was long the Tyburn of Dublin.--Gilbert, iii. 3.

[144] The _Ampelopsis veitchii_ planted on the eastern front in 1887 by G. L. C. & E. P. W., as seen in summer and autumn, has done wonders for the New Square. The hawthorns in every quadrangle brighten the whole face of the College in early summer.

[145] He began life as a house carpenter.

[146] There are in Dublin, at the present day, accomplished architects who have done, and are doing, good work both within and without the College walls. It is obvious that these remarks have no application nor reference to them, save in so far that even their best work has in it nothing peculiarly Irish.

[147] Letter to Montagu, May 18th, 1748.

[148] _Graphic_, May 29th, 1886.

[149] Milizia: _Lives of Architects_, p. 295.

[150] I am obliged to Mr. George Cook, the manager of the Burlington Hotel, for this information, and for afterwards showing me over the house.

[151] The Old Square of 1685 occupied apparently the site of two yet older quadrangles.

[152] “It is an accursed thing not to die.” This strange saying will be found in Epictetus, Diss. II. VI. 12, where the philosopher adds that man, like corn, having once been sown, must look forward with satisfaction to the harvest when he shall also be reaped. The slave moralist may perhaps have met St. Paul at Rome.

[153] These are modern pictures of no value or interest. There is an authentic and most interesting portrait of Bishop Berkeley in the Common Room.

[154] Born 1665; died 1745.

[155] Vigo Street, built at this time, takes its name from this most popular victory.

[156] Sir Robert Stewart, Mus. Doc., Professor of Music in the University, and Organist of the College Chapel, to whom my best thanks are due, not only for this information, but for many details as to the Chapel Organ kindly communicated in MS.

[157] The clapper weighs 2 cwt. 13 lbs., and the total cost was £230.

[158] The belfry stage is not of sufficient size to admit of the swinging of so great a bell as that of the College; it is accordingly rung by chiming only.

[159] One corner, indeed, had to be strengthened about the middle of the present century.

[160] The clock was made by Chancellor in the year 1846; it has a duplex escapement, and strikes the hours and half-hours. It was repaired and added to by Dobbyn in 1870.

[161] See _Notes and Queries_, I., vii., 428.

[162] This portrait was purchased by Lord Iveagh at Messrs. Christie & Manson’s, at a sale of some of the present Marquess of Ely’s pictures, in 1891.

[163] Cork, Midleton, Armagh, Kilkenny, Clare, and Connemara are all represented.

[164] Now Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge.

[165] _Historical Guide to Dublin_, Rev. G. N. Wright, 1821.

[166] St. Andrew’s Church appears in old documents as _Parochia Sancti Andrea de Thengmothe_.

[167] Stubbs: _History of the University of Dublin_, p. 145.

[168] A Grace passed the Senate of the University on the 20th of June, 1890, authorising admission to the degree of Doctor in Science of those who shall have been engaged in Scientific Investigation for not less than three years after graduating in Arts, and published results of independent work tending to the advancement of any branch of Science, and judged of sufficient merit by the Provost and Senior Fellows. Graduates of Trinity College who desire to devote themselves to the pursuit of any branch of Science can therefore now obtain a Scientific Degree on the ground of research. Facilities are afforded in the various schools for those who desire to acquire experience in conducting scientific researches, either by assisting in carrying out investigations actually in progress, working independently, or pursuing inquiries arising out of those recently conducted in the Schools.

[Illustration: (Decorative chapter heading)]

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