8 BRIDGE ST.

The Department's description

Historical information

This site is shown developed on the OS map 1834. The 1835-36 valuation tells us at that stage the building which was later to become no.8 Bridge Street was a house and shop, then occupied by Alexander Kerr and measured 15½ft x 20½ x 17 with a section with gateway to the eastern end of 10½ x 20½ x 8 and an office to the rear of 17 x 14½ x 16½. The property was classed by the valuers as ‘not new’ suggesting that it was known, or thought to be over 25 years old at that point.

The building is recorded in the 1861 valuation as a ‘a small shop…closed up and used chiefly as a store house now’ which was in the hands of Charles Sloan, who at this time also held the neighbouring public house (present no.10 - see HB16.06.022). The dimensions are given as 6yds 1ft x 6yds 2ft x 2[storeys], the section with the archway having become part of no.10 by this date.

In 1866 the rateable valuation of no.8 was raised from £5 to £10-10-0, whilst that of no.10 decreased from £19 to £14, with Charles Sloan giving up the lease on the latter. All of this indicates that the section with the archway was reunited with no.8 once again, an arrangement which is borne out by later 19th and 20th century photographs of the building. In 1872 a Miss Laird is noted by the valuers as the tenant, followed by William McCumisky in 1874, Mary [?Moody] in 1878, Thomas Keenan in 1881, Charles Sloan in 1883, Thomas Keenan 1884 and William Kaye 1892. Thomas McGuffin is noted as the occupant in 1909, and in the 1911 census he is recorded as a 31yr-old ‘master bootmaker’, living here with his wife, Jane, and their four young children. The McGuffin family were succeeded by Bernard Fegan in 1914, followed by Mary McConnell in 1922, Charles Sloan in 1923 (and 1926 - he held the lease of this property and no.10 at this point), Theresa Coyne in 1925 and James Donnan in 1928. Mary Donnan and Elizabeth Jordan are listed as the residents in 1936, and Ruth Jordan from 1953 until at least 1972.

No.8 and no.6 Bridge Street were separate properties when Rostrevor was surveyed as part of the First Survey of Historic Buildings in December 1969, and were both listed as such in September 1981. Both were amalgamated at some point after this date and 1994.

BRIDGE STREET In origin, Bridge Street was part of the road from Kilkeel, connecting the latter with the original roads to Rathfriland (present Greenpark Road) and to Newry (a route which appears to have followed present Warrenpoint Road before heading inland along today’s Rath, Donaghguy and Greenan Roads). Oliver Sloane’s County Down map of 1739 shows the settlement of Rostrevor comprising solely of buildings along the northeastern side of the road, suggesting that this side of of Bridge Street may well mark the earliest part of the village. Development on both sides of the street is shown on an estate map of 1767 and Williamson’s 1810 county map, and this had reached its present extent by the time the 1834 first edition OS map. Known in the 1830s as ‘Post Office Street’, owing to the presence of that establishment, this title had been modified to ‘Old Post Office Street’ by 1861, and finally in c.1894, to ‘Bridge Street.

The 1836 OS Memoirs describe the street as ‘leading from the centre of the main street in a south easterly direction to the bridge of Rostrevor…155 yards long, 95 feet broad at its broadest or north and western end and 25 feet at its narrowest part next [to] the bridge. The houses are of 2-storeys, in good order, all used for shops and having furnished lodgings for the accommodation of strangers.’

References - Primary sources
1 PRONI T1763/2 Map of County Down by Oliver Sloane, 1739
2 HERoNI Map of County Down by James Kennedy, 1755
3 PRONI D671/M7/2 Map of Rostrevor and surrounding lands, 1767
4 ‘A Map of the County of Down…by James Williamson, (1810)
5 OS map, Co. Down sheet 54, 1834
6 PRONI VAL1B/361 (1835-36)
7 Day, Angelique and McWilliams, Patrick ed. ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland…vol.3’ (QUB, 1990), p.35 (1835-36)
8 PRONI VAL2B/3/61C (1861)
9 PRONI VAL12B/19/21A-F (1865-1929)
10 Census of Ireland, 1901, 1911 [http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie, accessed 2020.06.30]
11 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory’, (Belfast, various dates, 1910-19)
12 OS map, Co. Down sheet 54, 1919
13 ‘Belfast Telegraph’, 19 December 1934, p.3
14 PRONI VAL3C/4/23, 1936-57
15 OS map, Co. Down sheet 54, 1950
16 PRONI VAL4B/3/81, 1956-72
17 OS map, sheet 277, 1979