6 Bowling Green

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Exterior description on 24.11.2004

Large three-storey terrace house, of c.1820s, with distinctive Greek Revival ‘portico’. The property is set on the NW side of (the) Bowling Green.

The front façade faces roughly SE and is symmetrical. To the centre of the ground floor is the main entrance. This consists of a panelled timber door with plain rectangular fanlight. The entrance is set within a Greek Revival portico with fluted columns supporting a frieze with moulded wreaths thereon, above which is a tympanum with acroteria.

Either side of the entrance is a flat-arched window with horned timber sash frame (one pane over one). To the first floor are three similar windows, with three more shorter versions to the second floor. The front elevation is finished in painted render with rusticated quoins.

Much of the rear elevation is taken up with a large, full-height gabled return. To the ground floor of the return there is a window to left, as front. To the right of this there is a single-storey lean-to projection with a window to its NW face with a recent frame. To the NE face of the lean-to there is a doorway with timber-sheeted door. To the first floor of the return there are two windows, as front, with two more shorter versions to the second floor. There is a similar window to the ground floor of the narrow NE face of the return. To the narrow exposed section of the rear façade of the main panes and coloured glazing. There is a similar window to the level above this.

The rear elevation is finished as the front but without the quoins. The roof of the main section and that of the return are slated. The main section has two rendered chimneystacks (to each end of the ridge) with another to the gable of the return. The rainwater goods are a mixture of cast-iron and PVC-u.

To the front of the house there is a small garden enclosed with a rendered walls with ‘battlements’. To the rear there is a large enclosed yard.

Amendment to exterior description on 19.09.2005.
uPVC windows have been installed to all of the window openiongs.

Historical information

This site is shown developed on the OS map of 1833-34. Unfortunately the plan of Strabane drawn up to accompany the valuation of 1832-34 has been lost, making it extremely difficult to trace any details of the buildings within the town at this date with any degree of certainty. Reading through the valuation book itself, however, a three-storey house of similar dimensions –albeit with a narrower return- is recorded as standing on this side of the Bowling Green in 1832. This particular house was then occupied by a James Adams.

The continuity of information supplied by the post 1857 valuations shows that the building we see today was standing at that point at least. The 1857 valuation itself tells us that the property served as a branch of the Belfast Bank at that date, with the bank leasing the building from a John Fenton, and a William Smyth occupying the manager’s quarters. According to Noel Simpson’s history of the Belfast Bank, the Strabane branch in the Bowling Green opened in 1834, but whether this branch was initially sited within this particular building is not certain.

The large elliptical archways off the hallway may be a legacy of the bank’s tenure in the building. Although they now filled with doorscreens they where undoubtedly once open, the hallway and what is now the dining room perhaps forming the banking hall itself.

The bank vacated the property in 1862, (relocating to larger premises on the southeast corner of the Bowling Green- now demolished), and in 1863 a William Gourlie & Son are recorded as the occupants of what was now a ‘house’ again. They were followed in 1867 by a Charles McColgan, by which time the house itself had ‘got into bad repair’. McColgan appears to have died in 1868 and the house seems to have lain vacant for much of the 1870s and 1880s, so that when Margaret Bannon took up the tenancy in 1889 the building is noted by the valuers as ‘dilapidated’. In 1892 ‘new offices’ (outbuildings) measuring 10yrds x 11 x 3 (storeys), 3 x 8 x 3 and 4 x 5 x 1 are recorded by the valuers and the rateable value rises by £7; elements of the internal detailing (and the presence of plate glass sash windows) suggests the house itself was renovated around this time also.

A John Elliott is listed as the occupier between c.1892 and 1921. He was succeeded by a Dr. J. McAdam hill, who remained there until 1958, when a Sarah A. Stevenson became tenant, followed by a W.E. Stafford in 1961. A J.J. Carnsby is noted as resident in 1967, staying on until 1972 at least.

References- Primary sources
1 ‘Pigot & Co’s City of Dublin and Hibernian Commercial Directory (Manchester 1824)
2 PRONI VAL/1B/638A First valuation, Camus parish (1832-c.38)
3 PRONI VAL/1B/638B First valuation, Camus parish (1832-c.38)
4 PRONI VAL/1B/638C First valuation, Camus parish (1832-c.38)
5 PRONI OS/6/5/5/1 OS map, County Tyrone sheet 5 (1833-34)
6 Lewis, Samuel, ‘Topographical history of Ireland’ (London, 1837)*
7 ‘Slater’s National Commercial Directory of Ireland (Manchester, 1846)
8 ‘Slater’s National Commercial Directory of Ireland (Manchester, 1856)
9 PRONI VAL/2B/6/41 Second valuation, Camus parish (1857)
10 PRONI VAL/2D/6/18A Valuation town plan of Strabane (1857 [-59])
11 PRONI VAL/2D/6/18B Valuation town plan of Strabane (1857 [-59]) [PRONI also holds a microfiche copy of this plan, catalogued under the ref. T/2933/4/252.]
12 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31A Annual valuation revision, Strabane ED(1860-64)
13 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31B Annual valuation revision, Strabane ED (1864-73)
14 ‘Slater’s Royal National Commercial Directory of Ireland’ (Manchester, 1870)
15 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31C Annual valuation revision, Strabane ED (1874-81)
16 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31D Annual valuation revision, Strabane ED (1882-91)
17 PRONI OS/8/25/1/1-17 OS town plan of Strabane (1883)
18 PRONI OS/9/22/2/1-17 OS town plan of Strabane (1883)
19 PRONI VAL/12E/187/1/1-12 Valuation town plan of Strabane (1884 [-1908])
20 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31E Annual valuation revision, Strabane ED (1892-96)
21 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31F Annual valuation revision, Strabane ED (1892-96)
22 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31G Annual valuation revision, Strabane UD (1897-1910)
23 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31H Annual valuation revision, Strabane UD (1897-1910)
24 PRONI OS/8/25/2/1-3 OS town plan of Strabane (1905)
25 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory’ (Belfast, 1905)
26 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31J Annual valuation revision, Strabane UD (1911-22)
27 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31K Annual valuation revision, Strabane UD (1911-22)
28 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31L Annual valuation revision, Strabane UD (1922-31)
29 PRONI VAL/12B/42/31M Annual valuation revision, Strabane UD (1922-31)
30 PRONI VAL/3B/7/14 First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland, Strabane UD (1935
31 PRONI VAL/3C/7/23 First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland, annual revisions, Strabane UD (1936-57)
32 PRONI VAL/3G/159/1/1-3 Valuation town plan of Strabane (1936-55)
33 PRONI VAL/3G/159/2/1-3 Valuation town plan of Strabane (1951-55) [Sheets 1 and 3 are currently missing.]
34 EHS OS map (1:10,000 scale), sheet 72 (1983)

Secondary sources
1 Simpson, Noel, ‘The Belfast Bank 1827-1970’ (Belfast, 1975), p.45
2 Bradley, Jim, et al, ‘The Fair River Valley: Strabane Through the Ages’ (Belfast, Ulster Historical Foundation, 2000)

Other
references
1 EHS HB10/14/005 First Survey report (10 Feb 1970)

[*Note- There is no 1830s OS Memoir description of Strabane.]

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H+. Alterations enhancing the building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Large three-storey terrace house, of c.1820s, with distinctive Greek Revival ‘portico’. This house is perhaps the most interesting ‘domestic’ building within the Bowling Green area, as it has retained much of its original appearance both inside and out and also possesses an interesting history, having served as a bank in the mid 19th century, something which may also explain its somewhat usual internal layout.