YE OLDE CORNER HOUSE

The Department's description

Historical information

This site is shown developed on the OS map of 1834. In the valuation book of the following year it is recorded as taken up by two ‘not new’ dwellings with shops. The larger property, to the southeast, then in the hands of Hugh Feran, is recorded as measuring 31½ft x 20 x 18½, with room (over the neighbouring house) of 14 x 20 x 8½, a return of 12 x 8 x 6, and offices of 17½ x 12 x 14 , 22 x 21½ x 16 and 16 x 10 x 9, whilst that to the northwest, in possession of Margaret martin, was 14ft x 20 x 10, with the triangular section to the end 4½ x 18 x 12. The appearance of the building suggests it may have been built in the late 18th century or very early 1800s.

In 1838 both concerns are recorded as a single property, still in the hands of Feran and Martin. By 1861 they were separate once again, with Patrick Brady is noted as the occupant of the smaller property - a ‘small grocery shop, parlour and one or two small rooms’), with Hugh Moffett (or Moffatt) in the larger, with the whole noted as amounting to 14½yds x 7? 2[storeys], with return of 11 x 3 x 2 and office of 7 x 6 x 2 . This remained the case until 1874 when the properties were amalgamated and the ‘shop enlarged’, and by at least 1877 this was being run as a hotel, and in the same year, the valuations record Andrew Cummins as the occupant. The valuers describe the building as a public house for the first time in 1891, and in 1893 Patrick McBrien is listed as the occupant. In the 1901 census, Mr. McBrien, a 50yr-old publican from Co. Armagh, is recorded as living here with his wife, Marianne, their four children, and his sister-in-law, Rose Quinn, with the building itself noted as a ‘1st class’ public house and ‘shop’ with eight rooms in use by the family. Francis Keenan took over the establishment in 1907, and in the 1911 census he was occupying the property with his wife, Mary, and a domestic servant, with 13 rooms noted as being in use. Henry Smyth is listed as the tenant in c.1932, Mary Smyth in 1958 and James Flynn in 1965. Mr Flynn still held the lease 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.’ Ironically, the post office returned to premises the street (no.7) in c.1917.

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 1877- )
12 OS map, Co. Down sheet 54, 1919
13 PRONI VAL3C/4/23, 1936-57
14 OS map, Co. Down sheet 54, 1950
15 PRONI VAL4B/3/81, 1956-72
16 OS map, sheet 277, 1979