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Newtown Pery is an area of central Limerick, Ireland, and forms the main city centre (or CBD) of the city. The district is known for its Georgian architectural heritage and is the core area of Limerick's Georgian Quarter. It is one of the three towns that make up modern-day Limerick City Centre, the other two being the older ''Englishtown & Irishtown'' which date from the medieval period. Newtown Pery houses the largest collection of Georgian townhouses in Ireland outside of Dublin. In 1837, Samuel Lewis in his ''Topographical Dictionary of Ireland'' described Newtown Pery as ‘one of the handsomest towns in Ireland’.〔http://www.libraryireland.com/topog/L/Limerick-City-Topography.php〕 ==History== Prior to the development of Newtown Pery, the historical City of Limerick was situated just north of the present day city centre, stretching from King John's Castle towards where St. John's Cathedral is today. The city was made up of two distinct towns; Englishtown (populated by Old English settlers) located on the historical island city and Irishtown (populated by natives) located on the southern bank of the Abbey River.〔http://www.limerickcity.ie/media/limerick%20history%2005.pdf〕 The two towns were connected by one bridge ''Baal's Bridge'' over the Abbey River, while ''Thomond Bridge'' beside King John's Castle was a major crossing point of the River Shannon from ''Englishtown'' into modern-day County Clare. As with most cities of this time, Limerick was heavily fortified and walled and the streets were characteristically narrow, winding & cramped.〔〔 Prior to the construction of Newtown Pery, Limerick was also beginning to exhibit some early Georgian styles within the old city. Examples surviving today include; the ''Old Bishop's Palace'' at ''Castle Street'' & at ''John's Square'' (Limerick's first example of fashionable architecture and civic spaces). Early photographs of the old city areas also show the old (pre-Georgian) continental & Dutch gabled styled townhouses as being altered somewhat to appear more Georgian. Very few of these survive today. Originally the land south of the medieval city that was to become Newtown Pery was owned by the Franciscans and known as ''South Priors Land''. Following the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII this land was granted to Edmund Sexton of whom Edmund Sexton Pery was a descendant and on whom much of Georgian Limerick is credited.〔〔http://limerickslife.com/rediscovering-limericke-3/〕 Following the turbulent years of the 17th century, Limerick began to prosper in the 18th century and was completely transformed into the city it is today.〔http://georgianquarter.com/264-2/〕 Easy access from most parts of Ireland facilitated by the River Shannon & the opening of canals enabled Limerick to become the main port city on the western side of Ireland, which in turn brought much prosperity to the city and to its merchants and landowners with trade between Britain and America.〔 The boundaries of the city of Limerick, where the municipal corporation had authority, were smaller than the county of the city of Limerick, where the city grand jury had parallel authority. The area within the county of the city but outside the city proper was termed the city liberties. The development of Newtown Pery can be attributed to the work of Edmund Sexton Pery (created Viscount Pery in 1785) and his plan for the development of a new town on lands he owned in the south liberties of the city. In 1769, he commissioned the Irish engineer Christopher Colles to design a town plan on his estate which has since become known as ''Newtown Pery''. Colles devised an impressive plan for the Pery Estate which divided the estate into a grid plan of equal rectangular plots & length and of a distinctive architectural unity which still defines the city centre to this day.〔 The town was built in stages as Pery sold off leases to builders and developers who built 4 and 5 story townhouses in the Georgian fashion with long wide and elegant streets in grid plan design with O'Connell Street (originally known as George's Street) as its centre, which was mostly in accordance with Colles' plan.〔http://www.garrymiley.com/2007/05/05/TheConservationOfGeorgianLimerick1.aspx〕 The earliest houses are located along Bank Place, Rutland Street, Patrick Street which were built by the Arthur family - a prominent Limerick family during the 18th century. Some of the finest examples of Georgian Architecture can be seen at the Crescent area and Pery Square.〔 The Custom's House (Hunt Museum), designed by Italian architect Davis Ducart, is also one of the city's finest examples of Georgian Architecture. By the turn of the 19th Century, Newtown Pery was rapidly growing as most fashionable area of the city. In 1807 its leading residents secured a private act of the UK parliament to establish a body of improvement commissioners as municipal authority for the civil parish of St Michael's, within which Newtown Pery was located. The commissioners were abolished in 1853 when the area was absorbed into Limerick city.〔 One brake on the town's development was that the only crossing point on the Shannon remained at Thomond Bridge in the old and now less fashionable Englishtown district. In 1835, a new bridge was built over the Shannon connecting the west directly with Newtown Pery.〔 It was originally called Wellesley Bridge after Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland when the act to pay for it was passed. It cemented Newtown Pery's position as Limerick's premier urban district as connections to the area improved.〔 The five-arch bridge was designed by Alexander Nimmo based on the Pont de Neuilly in Paris. In 1882 it was replaced with the current Sarsfield Bridge.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Newtown Pery, Limerick」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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