The Manchester Bar

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A three-storey gabled stuccoed building, painted pale green, with prominent dormers to the attic and a pilastered ground floor.

Main entrance faces north. North elevation four windows wide to the first floor. Roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses; red terracotta ridge tiles; roof continuous with that of adjoining house to right. Moulded cast iron guttering in three sections on stuccoed dentil cornice to each side of and between the two dormers; three rectangular section cast iron gutters discharge to full-width moulded cast iron gutter below at cill level of dormers; PVC downpipe at party line with adjoining house to right and painted same colour as adjoining house, continuous from there to ground level. Two dormers to attic, or second floor: segmental headed with moulded copings; central ball finial to each dormer with blank medallion in wall space above each window; stucco badly cracking to dormer gables, some missing to right hand one. Dormer windows segmental headed; a pair of timber side hung casements with toplight over. Plat band below full width gutter. First floor windows semi-circular headed with wider spacing between second and third; moulded arches, keystones, and moulded string course across building at arch springing level; each window a pair of rectangular timber casements beneath a semi-circular headed toplight; painted stucco cills.

Ground floor facade comprises four openings: two large rectangular plate glass fixed lights, one each side of a doorway, with another doorway to the right hand extremity, all bounded and divided by five stuccoed pilasters with fluted capitals and moulded cornices. Windows have etched cornucopia designs with running vine borders above; painted stone cill to each large window, with blind rectangular panel below contained in moulded surround; offset plinth with coved moulding across front of building.

Recessed slightly between large windows, entrance to bar, comprising two-leaf wooden door, each leaf two-panel, with a raised and fielded panel of fluting below a blank panel. Above door, a semi-circular fanlight in rectangular wooden surround; ornamentally carved keystone, scrolling motifs to spandrels and frieze; moulded cornice to door head; fanlight glazed with tinted leaded glass, damaged, incorporating ribbon design but inscription removed; concrete doorstep, original. Doorway to right similar in form except single leaf door, six-panel, all raised, fielded and fluted; part of moulded surround to bottom right hand panel missing; brass letterbox and door handle, original. Fanlight above as previous except leaded work intact with ribbon inscribed ‘Family Department’; small portion of fretwork in spandrel missing. To left hand extremity of ground floor facade, square PVC downpipe in angle with projecting basalt wall of neighbouring market yard; concrete area across front of building. Across top of ground floor pilasters, name of bar in ornamental painted script across frieze which runs between pairs of coupled curved wooden brackets, with dentil cornice over; burglar alarm box mounted on frieze at right hand side, painted same maroon colour as all other woodwork, unobtrusive. Above, fixed to wall between pairs of first floor windows, flagpole mount and modern sign on iron bracket.

East elevation: three-storey gable finished with later dry dash render of limestone chippings; stone string course or plat band at second floor level but not of same depth or detail as to entrance front. Chimney on apex, finished in painted stucco; cornice and offsets; one tall pot. Painted stone copings to gable. Two windows to attic storey, at each extremity, rectangular timber sliding sash, vertically hung, 1 over 1, with horns; painted cills. First floor: two narrow rectangular windows to left; one to right, all encased in security grilles. Extreme left is timber sliding sash, vertically hung, with horns, 1 over 1 but incorporating margin lights; window to right of that is timber fixed light with top hung vent, later replacement; window to right is sashed as previous, without margin lights. Ground floor obscured by gabled shed of adjoining market yard to east. Extending to left and set back from main east gable, side wall of two-storey rear return: roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses; cast iron gutter and downpipe to intermediate rectangular hopper, with PVC downpipe below; smooth cement rendered wall with similar chimney on gable of return; one tall pot; two windows, rectangular sliding sash, vertically hung, with horns, 2 over 2 horizontally divided, with attached metal security grilles; below windows lean-to asbestos slated roof enclosing part of yard, with modern flush rooflight.

Rear elevation: three-storey rear wall of main house; roof slated as entrance front; cast iron and PVC guttering; cast iron downpipe with cast iron soil pipe to right hand extremity; wall smooth cement rendered with TV satellite dish attached at first floor level. Gable of rear return, blank cement rendered, has projecting two-storey lean-to, similar walling with two openings to each floor now blocked up with concrete blockwork or render; to right hand side smooth cement rendered gable of lean-to to right of return; timber fascia. To left hand side of rear return, cutting into the rear lean-to roof, monopitch roofed return of adjoining property (no. 6) with walls dry dashed as rest of rear elevation of adjoining property which has been generally modernised. Concrete surface to rear yard. Boundary walls to rear yard: to east, basalt and concrete block and basalt and firebrick walls of adjoining market yard; to south, red brick and basalt and limestone rubble walling of outbuilding with large coach entrance, all in poor condition; corrugated iron doors to south side of south boundary, set in rubble walling with brick infill; to west, within yard, red brick wall.

Setting: the building stands at the end of a long terrace of houses within the built-up area of the town, with the market yard to its other side. The house adjoining to the west (now converted into flats) has a roof continuous with it and was clearly integral with it originally, as it is a similarly styled three-storey building with two dormers, and displays identical detailing to one dormer, to first floor windows and to the doorway, but also displays a first floor oriel, an original feature, and has replacement windows and is painted a different colour. The rest of the terrace is of variegated form, quality, and colour.

Historical information

The precise date of building has not been recorded but stylistically it looks like a work of the 1880s or 1890s. A front block and rear block both appear on the OS map of 1857 but stylistically the front block looks like a work of the 1880s or early 1890s and may be taken as a late Victorian remodelling or possibly complete replacement of an early Victorian building. It is marked as the Manchester Hotel on the 1893 OS map. It appears with its title panel blank in an undated contemporary photograph as the premises of Thomas Robinson, who was first listed as a spirit merchant at the Manchester Hotel in the Ulster directory of 1902, but other Robinsons had been listed as innkeepers in Larne from 1877 to the 1890s. It would thus appear to have been built for a member of the Robinson family but evidence as to which one is inconclusive.

References - Primary

1. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 40.
2. OS Map 1893, Co Antrim 40.
3. Belfast and Ulster Directory for 1902
4. Old photograph in the collection of Larne Historical Society.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is an example of a late Victorian public house which has a well preserved front facade in virtually unaltered form and an interior which retains a range of ornamented features which are characteristic of its period, but later alterations to the bar interior detract from its particular period character, while later alterations to the rear of the building have eroded its overall quality as a building.