Blessington Street Basin: the Victorian reservoir turned water park in Dublin

At the bottom of Blessington Street, at the western end of the road in the Phibsborough neighbourhood (Dublin 7), you step in through a wrought-iron gate set into high stone walls. Inside, the space shifts register: the sheet of water takes up roughly 80% of a park of just 0.75 hectares, with an artificial island at its centre that serves as a refuge for swans and ducks. It is an urban park built around a reservoir, not the other way round, and that makes it an anomaly compared with the lawns and tree-lined avenues you would expect from a city garden.

The origins

The reason lies in its origin. The basin was built by Dublin Corporation from 1803 and completed in 1810 as a drinking-water reserve for the north side of the city. Its official name was the Royal George Reservoir, in honour of George III, but Dubliners always called it simply "the Basin". The water came from far away: from Lough Owel, in County Westmeath, carried by the Royal Canal and then through a pipeline of about three kilometres as far as Blessington Street. The reservoir could hold around four million gallons. When the new Vartry reservoir came into operation in the 1860s, the basin changed role: it went on supplying the city's great whiskey distilleries, Jameson until 1970 and Power's until 1976. Beside the gate the basin keeper's cottage, built in 1811, still survives.

The restoration

Already a public park since the late nineteenth century, by the 1990s the site was in a sorry state: stagnant, silted-up water, chain-link fencing, some walls collapsed. Between April 1993 and October 1994 it underwent a complete restoration and reopened as a park on 4 November 1994, unveiled by the then President of Ireland, Mary Robinson. Today, around the water there are benches, mature trees, bronze sculptures, a children's playground, outdoor exercise stations, a multipurpose court, a few beehives and a community garden. The stone walls that enclose it shut out the noise of traffic on Dorset Street, just a few steps away. The basin also makes a fleeting appearance in James Joyce's Ulysses.

What to see

What you actually see, in a visit of barely an hour: the full circuit of the perimeter along the water, the swans nesting on the island in spring, the reflections of Georgian facades and plane trees on the still surface. It is a place frequented above all by those who live nearby: people walking the dog, elderly folk on the benches, the odd runner. On Friday afternoons, along the Royal Canal right beside it, there is a farmers' market.

How to get there

How to get there: it is about a fifteen-minute walk from O'Connell Street. You follow Frederick Street beyond Parnell Square, the road becomes Blessington Street, and you carry on to the very end, crossing Dorset Street and Berkeley Street. The main entrance is on Blessington Street (Eircode D07 V0C8); there are two secondary entrances from the Royal Canal side and from Primrose Street. By public transport, the nearest Luas stop is Broadstone. Admission is free. Opening times vary with the seasons: it opens at 10 all year round and closes as early as 5pm in winter or as late as 10pm in summer, so it is worth checking the up-to-date times on the Dublin City Council website before you go. The gates start closing half an hour before the stated time.