Doyle’s Old Auction House Under The Hammer

Cashel 10MAR22

t’s the building where Rochford Doyle kept his auction house items back in the 1920s, ’30s and early ’40s.

The offices were situated where Mooch was and Larry’s is today, and the Doyles – builders, estate agents and auctioneers over generations – were based in the adjoining Bushfield House and its neighbouring cottage.

And now the last link to a very long line is about to be demolished, with the old auction house on Hillside Road known as Cashel being part of a new planning application for a 3-storey apartment building. In March 2022, the application was for nine two-storey houses on this highly-lucrative location.

Erected on March 16th, and  up on Wicklow Planning’s website as #23257, the site notice reads…

I, Barbara Barker, intend to apply for permission for development at this site of area 0.163ha at CASHEL, HILLSIDE ROAD, GREYSTONES, CO WICKLOW.

The development will consist of:

Rochford Doyle’s auction house & estate agents

3 storey Apartment Building incorporating 14 no apartments (9 no 2 bedroom apartments and 5 no 1 bedroom apartments with gross floor areas varying from 52sqm to 70sqm) and balconies/terraces in the southeast, southwest and northwest facing elevations, bin storage & bicycle parking; for all boundary walls, gates and fences, hard and soft landscaping, for all site services above and below ground including connections to existing services and for all associated site development works including the removal of the existing dwelling 227sqm.

Inside the goldmine…

Back in September 2018, we spoke briefly with the current caretakers of the property, descendants of the Doyle family, as they showed us around inside the building. Just the small right-hand side extension is habitable, the bulk of Cashel being simply storage. Where some unclaimed 1940s items of furniture still reside. 

The couple were too shy to appear on camera. We’ll have to rely on local historians such as Gary Paine and Rosemary Raughter to fill in that deep-rooted history, given that many of Greystones better-known houses (including what is now Fenton Fires) were built by this industrious Greystones family.

In the meantime, go explore other historical Greystones buildings right over here, here and here.

You can find out planning objections here.