7 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’ house measuring 19½ft x 28 x 23, with a ‘room over gate’ of 8 x 14 x 15, a return of 12 x 13 x 15½. At this point the property was in the hands of Robert Willis. Mr. Willis was still living there in 1838.

By 1861 it had become the local police barrack. The dimensions recorded in the valuation of that year are approximately as those of 1835 - 6yds 1ft x 9 x 2½[storeys], with the section including the gateway amounting to 3 x 4½ x 2½ (minus the gateway void), with the return amounting to 4 x 4 x 2 and an outbuilding of 7 x 7 x 2; the latter was not recorded in 1835, but is shown on the redrawn valuation town plan of c.1838-39.

It remained as such until 1881 when it was acquired by Thomas Marshall who leased it to John Jameson as a private dwelling. He was succeeded as occupant by Mary Anne Marshall in 1881, who seems to have been Thomas Marshall’s widow, and who, from 1894, also held neighbouring no.5. In the 1901 census is recorded as a 60yr-old widow originally from Belfast, living here alone, with the building (presumably no.7 and no.5) noted as a ‘2nd class’ dwelling with 11 rooms in use. Mrs. Marshall appears to have died in 1914 and Sarah Ryan became tenant.

By 1917 the property had come into the possession of Mary Gwynne, (who seems to have inherited nos.5 and 7 it from Mrs. Marshall - see HB16.06.042), and was converted to serve as the local post office. Elizabeth Whittaker, who had served as Rostrevor’s postmistress since c.1907 became the new occupant and remained there until her death in early 1928. According to the valuation books, the next tenant was Charles Hanlon in c.1937, with Winifred Gwynne listed as both owner and occupier in 1953, followed by Elizabeth Gwynne the following year, with Owen Morgan renting the shop section of the building separately by 1956. Marrianne Lyon became owner in 1962, succeeded by John McQuaid in 1964, who is listed in the valuations as occupying the whole building from that date until at least 1972.

The property was amalgamated with no.5 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, as mentioned above, the post office returned to premises in the street 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, 1910-19)
12 OS map, Co. Down sheet 54, 1919
13 PRONI VAL3C/4/23, 1936-57
14 ‘Belfast Telegraph’, 26 February 1938, p.7
15 ‘Northern Whig’, 17 February 1928, p.5
16 OS map, Co. Down sheet 54, 1950
17 PRONI VAL4B/3/81, 1956-72
18 ‘Belfast Telegraph’, 8 June 1957, p.2
19 OS map, sheet 277, 1979