36 BRIDGE ST.

The Department's description

Historical information

This site is shown developed on the OS map 1834. The valuation book of the following year is difficult to decipher, but it suggests that at this point the plot was taken up by a ‘not new’ two-storey building which was split into two properties, one to each floor. That taking up the ground level was occupied by Thomas Gribbon, with the upper storey belonging to the neighbouring house to the southeast, which was then hands of Alexander Donaldson [no.38 - see HB16.06.028], with both sections measuring the same 12½ x 21 x 6. In c.1839 the neighbouring house appears to have been rebuilt and it would seem that the building on this site became a single dwelling (as it may have been originally), which by 1861 was being occupied by William Colgan, who was leasing it from Bernard Feran, with property valued (for rating purposes) at fairly modest £3-10-0. The valuation book of that year records the dimensions of the building as 4½yds x 7 x 2.

In 1874 the rateable value of both this house and the three similar dwellings to the immediate northwest [nos.30-34 - see HB16.06.027D-F] rose from £3-10-0 / £3-0-0 to £5-15-0, indicating that all four were either substantially refurbished or rebuilt at this time, with the overall uniformity of the properties (and details such as the bevelled window reveals) suggesting the latter. By 1879 this new dwelling had been leased to John Mahon, followed in 1881 by Walter Hannon, Philip Coalter in 1898, Minnie Doyle in 1900, Ellen Murphy in 1902 and Stephen Woods in 1909, Bessie Fearon in 1911 and George Fearon in 1919. Mary Sloan is recorded as the occupant in 1936 and was still living here in 1972.

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 PRONI VAL2B/3/61C (1861)
8 PRONI VAL12B/19/21A-F (1865-1929)
9 OS map, Co. Down sheet 54, 1902
10 OS map, Co. Down sheet 54, 1919
11 PRONI VAL3C/4/23, 1936-57
12 OS map, Co. Down sheet 54, 1950
13 PRONI VAL4B/3/81, 1956-72
14 OS map, sheet 277, 1979