3 Kingsgate Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

The building was demolished c1998 following Planning Approval for its replacement.

First Survey record - 'Six three storey brick or rendered buildings with modern shopfronts. Upper windows, some triple, are modern, Georgian-paned or plain sashed. Roofs are slated and chimneys are of brick or finished in render.'

Historical information

Numbers 1, 3 and 5 Kingsgate Street were demolished in the late 1990s but the original buildings on the site, shown in a first survey photograph dating from 1993 are likely to have incorporated fabric of late eighteenth or early nineteenth century date, having been constructed across the line of the former city ramparts, which were levelled during the eighteenth century.

Kingsgate Street marks the position of a former gateway to the fortified town of Coleraine, earthern ramparts surrounded by a ditch having been constructed at the time of plantation in 1611 (Mullin). By 1622 what was formerly known as the ‘East Gate’ of the town had been fitted with a small gate and drawbridge 12 feet wide ‘having a small timber room over...slated’ (Mullin). By 1710, however the town gates had been dismantled, although the ramparts remained in the Kingsgate area for some years. In 1738 a holding of 17 perches in the Kingsgate area was appropriated for a school funded by the Irish Society. The holding is described as bounded on the west by the rampart and according to Mullin was situated at the point where the road widens in Kingsgate Street, equivalent today to numbers 9 to 11. (Mullin) By the first edition OS map of 1830 no rampart was evident on the south side of Kingsgate Street and the former line of the rampart had been built over by numbers 1, 3, 5 and 7.

Numbers 1 , 3 and 5 were formerly three separate houses, shown on the first edition OS map of 1830 and on the contemporary valuation town plan. Number 1 was a house and offices occupied by Dan Taylor and valued at £13.12s, while number 3 was a house and offices occupied by John McGowan and valued at £11.14s. The valuation fieldbook gives measurements for both buildings showing that numbers 1, 3, 5 and 7 were of identical height and depth but varied in the width of their street frontage. All four buildings had cellar kitchens. To the rear of number one was a slated shed, a thatched byre and a stable and store, while to the rear of number two was a stable.

At the time of Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64), number one was occupied by Rachel Andrews and valued at £18 with an annual rent of £20. The corner house was described as being in a ‘good business situation’ and ‘all in good repair’. The measurements recorded in the fieldbook suggest that this building remained unaltered from the previous survey in the 1830s. Number 3 was occupied by Hugh Nevins and was a leather warehouse, described as a ‘neat shop’ but the upper parts were ‘little used’. The valuation was £14 and again measurements suggest no changes since the 1830s. The houses were both leased from Stephen Bennett of ‘Greenfield’.

Subsequent occupiers at number three were Samuel Lithgow (nd) Robert Lithgow (nd) Thomas Lithgow (1877) William White (1884) Susan White (1924) and Millicent White (1931), the White family remaining resident until at least the 1930s. At the time of the 1911 census the occupier was listed as widow Susan White, who lived with her son, a farmer, her daughter and a boarder who was an assistant in the iron-mongery shop. The family employed two live-in servants, a general domestic and a farm servant. Valuer’s notes of the 1930s record the accommodation as a basement cellar, a shop, kitchen and scullery on the ground floor with a side entrance to the living accommodation, a bedroom and reception on the first floor and two bedrooms on the second floor. The tenant put in new shop windows and fitted out the shop in 1933. The associated plan shows the shop with rear returns containing a scullery and store, open shed and WC together with outbuildings at the rear of the yard.

The building was listed in 1977 and in 1998 permission was granted to demolish numbers one, three and five, which were then replaced with modern shops (HB file).

References:

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/5/7/1 First Edition OS Map 1830
2. PRONI OS/6/5/7/2 Second Edition OS map 1849-50
3. PRONI OS/6/5/7/3 Third Edition OS Map 1904
4. PRONI OS/6/5/7/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1923
5. PRONI OS/6/5/7/5 Fifth Edition OS Map 1949
6. PRONI VAL/1/B/542A-D Townland Valuation (1828-40)
7. PRONI VAL/2/B/5/3/D Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/9A-N Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
9. PRONI VAL/3/C/6/4 First General Revaluation 1933-57
10. PRONI VAL/3/D/6/2/A/12 First General Revaluation 1933-57
11. HB file – 03/17/001B

Secondary Sources

1. Girvan, W D “Historic Buildings, Groups of Buildings, Areas of Architectural Importance in Coleraine and Portstewart” Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1971-2
2. Mullin, Rev T H “Coleraine in by-gone centuries” Belfast: Century Services Ltd, 1976
3. Mullin, Rev T H “Coleraine in Georgian Times” Belfast: Century Services Ltd, 1977

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

The building was demolished c1998 following Planning Approval for its replacement.

First Survey record - 'Six three storey brick or rendered buildings with modern shopfronts. Upper windows, some triple, are modern, Georgian-paned or plain sashed. Roofs are slated and chimneys are of brick or finished in render.'