5 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 ‘new’ shop and house measuring 19½ft x 28 x 23, with a ‘back room over gate’ of 8 x 14 x 15, and an office of 20½ x 21½ x 16 with return of 11 x 8 x 6. It is likely that both this building and that attached to the immediate southeast (which was originally a separate dwelling - see HB16.06.043) were built together, possibly, judging from their appearance, around 1820. In 1835 the property was in the hands of William Tempest, who was still living there in 1838.

In 1861 Mrs Elizabeth Brain is recorded as the tenant, (in fact she appears to have taken up the lease in that year), with Robert McMinn the immediate lessor. The valuation of the same year records dimensions similar to before - 6yds 1ft x 9 x 2[storeys - with attic], with part ‘over gate in rere’ of 3 x 4½, return of 5 x 3 x 1 (slightly longer than in 1835), and an outbuilding of 7 x 7 x 2.

Mrs Brain was succeeded by George Copeland in 1868, who was filled by John Calvert in 1873, Michael O’Hare in 1876, Eliza Smyth in 1879, David Boal in 1883, Thomas Marshall in 1884 and Robert William Booth in 1891. From 1894, Mary Anne Marshall (who may have been previous occupant Thomas Marshall’s widow) is listed as the occupant of both no.5 and no.7. In the 1901 census she is recorded as a 60yr-old widow originally from Belfast, living here alone, with the building itself (i.e. the combined nos.5 and 7) noted as a ‘2nd class’ dwelling with 11 rooms in use.

By c.1910 no.5 had come into the possession of Mary Gwynne, who seems to have been a relative of Mrs. Marshall, acquiring the lease of both this house and neighbouring no.7 after the latter’s death c.1914. Also from Belfast, Mrs Gwynne is recorded in the 1911 census as a 38yr-old married woman living on an annuity who was occupying the house with her two teenage sons, with the building itself a ‘2nd class dwelling with 8 rooms in use. Robert Gwynne is listed as the householder in 1942 and Thomas McPolin [?McPoland] from 1956 until at least 1972.

The property was amalgamated with no.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.’ 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