3 BRIDGE ST.

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 a ‘not new’ shop and house in good condition measuring 14½ft x 23 x 17½, with return of 11½ x 10 x 6, and an office of 16½ x 21½ x 16 with return of 11 x 8 x 6. The appearance of the property suggests it may have been built in the late 18th century or very early 1800s .

In 1835 the property was in the hands of Ruth McAllister, who was still living there in 1838. In 1861 Sarah White is recorded as the tenant, with John Cull the immediate lessor, with the property noted as a ’small grocery shop’ measuring 5yds 2ft x 6 x 2[storeys] with a return of 5 x 4 x 2 and office of 5 x 7 x 2. John Cull is recoded as the tenant himself in 1873, and he is listed in the 1877 and 1880 Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory’s as a ‘spirit dealer’ who also possessed a coal yard and also acted ‘timber and iron merchant and grocer’. He was succeeded by Robert William Booth in 1891, Mary Anne Marshall in 1894 (Mrs. Marshall is also noted as the occupant of neighbouring nos.5 and 7 at this date, though undoubtedly she only occupied one of these houses), Samuel Moffett in 1897 and James Irwin (‘grocer’) in 1898. The property remained vacant from 1907 until 1914, when Thomas McGuffin took up residence. He was followed in 1915 by Charlotte [?Moledin] in 1915 and Minnie Fearon in 1917, by which stage the shop seems to have been converted to tea rooms. Joseph Robinson is listed as the occupant in 1925, Robert Gwynne in 1936, Jim Trainor in 1946, Mary Smyth in 1948 and Thomas McPoland from 1955 until at least 1972.

The property was amalgamated with nos.5-7 Bridge Street at some point after 1979.

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 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