Listed Brooks & Co shop in Dublin 2 guiding €700,000

A listed former curiosity shop at 136 Baggot Street in Dublin 2 has come on the market through Lisney quoting €700,000.

The former Brooks & Co outlet came on the letting market in late 2014 at a rent of €75,000 but the owners have now decided to sell.

It has 187sq m (2,012sq ft), including 102sq m (1,093sq ft) of retail space on the ground and first floors, while there is another 50sq m (539sq ft) in the basement.

If ever there was a place where time has stood still, it’s the Brooks & Co shop. The timber structure, from the early 1800s, is in a modest Dutch Billy style, with a handsome shopfront adorned with gold-leaf signage.

Inside, dark wooden pharmacy fittings date from the mid-1800s and the visitor is immediately transported to the Victorian era. This is an authentic period shop where IT has yet to register a presence. Brooks & Co was run until recently by antiques dealer Pat Ryan who was often found next to the ground- floor fireplace chatting with clients.

Mr Ryan ran the curiosity shop from the 1970s and only called it a day in his 80s. The shop had a loyal and eclectic clientele. If you were looking for something different, you’d find it at Brooks & Co.

Despite more than 30 years in the shop, Mr Ryan made one significant addition to the interior: installing a staircase from the former Paradiso restaurant on Westmoreland Street to give access to the first floor. This was added before the building, inside and out, was listed in the 1990s.

Excellent passing footfall

Today's shopfront has been a feature of the streetscape since the mid-1800s, when a "chemists, druggists, varnish, oil, colour, and glass merchants" was run from the premises. The pharmacy subsequently traded under Brooks & Co before being assumed in the late 1800s by Mr RJ Downes, the notable president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland, who operated it as The Fitzwilliam Pharmacy.

Brooks & Co could suit a coffee shop, restaurant, bakery, or health and beauty outlet due to its location in the heart of the southside Georgian core, with excellent passing footfall not far from the Shelbourne and Merrion hotels. But planning permission will be required for a change of use if preparing food on the premises.

Nearby retailers include Boots, Chez Max, The Pearl, Voila and Tesco. There is also a good selection of restaurants in the area and landmark pubs close by include Doheny and Nesbitt, O'Donoghues and Matt the Thresher.