Shop store (for 'Penney's Interiors')

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Plain single storey store of perhaps c.1910, with Belfast Truss roof. The building is set on the N side of [?]Narrow Guage Road, just to the SE of Larne town centre.

The building measures roughly 25m x 11.5 and is abutted by neighbouring buildings to the N and E. The façade is finished in render and painted. The front (S) gable has a central vehicle doorway with roller shutter and large laminated signboard above. To the left of the entrance there is a large window opening, now boarded up. There is a similar window opening to the right of the entrance. To the longer W elevation there is a vehicle entrance much as before to the left of centre, with a large boarded up window opening to left of this and another two to right. The curved roof is covered in felt.

Historical information

This building may date from c.1910.

The Belfast truss was developed in the mid-nineteenth century to meet the demand for efficient, lightweight and long span roofs brought about by the industrial revolution. A detailed description of the historical development of the Belfast truss is included in the record for HB18/08/139. In brief, the first known reference to a curved wooden felted roof structure supported by bowstring girders is in an advertisement in the Dublin Builder for 1866 by the Belfast firm of felt-makers, McTear & Co. McTear’s continued making trusses until they went out of business in 1908.

A second Belfast felt supplier, Anderson & Co., began to produce trusses, to a slightly different design, in 1886. In 1896, Anderson’s launched their Mk II version; promoted as maximising long spans whilst maintaining light weight. This model was subsequently used by other companies, and is referred to by historians as the Belfast truss, although this term is widely used to apply to all timber bowstring trusses where the internal bracing members meet not on the bottom of the truss as was the convention but on the top curved member.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Plain single storey store building of perhaps c.1910, with Belfast Truss roof. A relatively large but unremarkable example of a Belfast Truss-roofed structure.

General comments

Surveyed as part of the Belfast Roof Truss survey.