Making an Irish Free State City – Views on architecture

At the weekly luncheon of the Cork Rotary Club on 19 October 1926 held at the Victoria Hotel, an address was given by architect Henry Houghton Hill (1882-1951).

The lecture was entitled The Value of First Impressions. Reading through his lecture, Henry provides another angle to the place-making thinking within the rapidly evolving Irish Free State city of Cork.

The online Dictionary of Irish Architects details that in the early 1920s, Henry had been involved in the design of several impressive buildings in Cork that very much caught the eye – most notably the Musgrave Brothers building on Cornmarket Street (1921), Mallow Munster and Leinster Bank (1922), the extension of the rear of the South Mall’s Munster and Leinster Bank (1922-1925) through a gorgeous archway onto Marlboro Street, Cash & Company’s new St Patrick’s Street building with its curving ashlar limestone façade (1924-1925), and the Hanover Street Boot Factory (1925).

In October 1926, John J Horgan, President of the Cork Rotary Club, opened his remarks by denoting that he was an admirer of much of Henry’s “beautiful work”. He was sure that Henry would give them an interesting talk on the educational architectural aspects of the question of first impressions. John J further remarked that the talk would be of great value to the members of the Rotary Club as they belonged to different professions, and it would provoke their views and experiences of the city.

Henry spoke about what a tourist or a person or business would make of the city when they saw it for the first time. He gave mixed views of his experiences. In his opening remarks he asserted that the Cork-Dublin railway station was not calculated to create a good impression in its design and had become a central space in its exterior for too many people to congregate and remain for a long time.

He argued that the streets of Cork were cleaner than they were in the past. He felt that St Patrick’s Street and its reconstruction after the Burning of Cork in 1920 looked “considerably better than it was” and that the new buildings would create “some business and be of value”. He was impressed with the number of “fine looking buildings” that had been erected.

Henry noted that he had seen American narratives, “very bluntly put from the materialistic point of view, simply saying architecture pays”. He felt that good architecture did “pay”, and that Cork needed that debate on how architecture does add to the sense of place of the city.

Henry was part of a legacy of the Hill family who were prominent architects. In the book ‘The Hill Architects: A Cork Architectural Dynasty, 1827–1951’, authored by historian Dagmar Ó Riain-Raedel and Richard Wood (2025), it sets out an influential and architectural dynasty that shaped the built heritage of Cork city and county for over a century, spanning from 1827 to 1951. The book details that over three generations, a lineage of six architects from the Hill family designed with care and much detail many of Cork's most iconic landmarks, ranging from classical banks and commercial spaces to public galleries and social housing.

Henry H was the eldest of the two sons of Arthur Hill and his grandfather was Henry Hill. Born in Cork in 1882, Henry H was a student at Merchant Taylors’ School in Crosby, Liverpool. As a teenager, he then joined his father’s office for a time. He attended the Liverpool University School of Architecture. There he was the first student to be awarded the new degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Architecture in 1905.

From 1907 to 1910, Henry H studied at the Royal Academy Schools in London. In 1909 he was awarded the RIBA's Silver Medal and £25 guineas for his essay, The Influence on Architecture of Modern Methods of Construction. The previous year, he had received a certificate of honourable mention for an earlier essay.

In 1909 Henry entered into partnership with his father at 22 George’s Street (now Oliver Plunkett Street). The practice became known as Arthur & Henry H Hill.

One of their most prominent joint commissions was the Munster and Leinster Bank on the South Mall (opened in 1915). Historian Dagmar Ó Riain-Raedel and Richard Wood write of the careful detail in the design of the building by the Hill practice. “They were not prepared to scale down their design, and the plans were executed as they intended. Commensurate with the size of the commission, no trouble or expense was spared. For the bank’s interior, six pink marble columns, which had been surplused to the construction of Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London, were shipped to Cork. Furthermore, the Italian quarries at Breccia, which had produced the marble, were specially opened to supply materials for an additional two columns that were needed to complete the structure. The building is surrounded by a glass dome some 34 metres above floor level, designed to bring light into the circular dash shaped interior. The Italian marble columns with alabaster capitals contrast with other features finished in various types of marble dash red from Midleton, green from Connemara, and black from Kilkenny.”

Henry’s father Arthur remained active in the partnership until ill health led to his retirement in 1917.

During the First World War, Henry held a commission in the Royal Engineers. On returning home, he married Elizabeth M Stoker. Her family were provision merchants and lived at Ballinlough House in Ballinlough. Henry and Elizabeth had two daughters, Moira and Myrtle. Myrtle became an Irish culinary pioneer at Ballymaloe House.

Like his father, Henry was a lecturer on architecture at University College Cork. He also gave lectures to a variety of other audiences such as Rotary and history clubs and societies on architectural subjects.

The late 1920s coincided with two other prominent commissions for Henry – that of the Cork Examiner Offices at 95 St Patrick’s Street and the Dairy Science building in UCC.