St Bronach's Parochial Hall

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Substantial two and a half storey rendered and gabled hotel / public house of 1901 (now a parochial hall) of relatively plain appearance. The property is set at the end of a short mixed terrace on the southwest side of Bridge Street, Rostrevor.

The front façade is rendered and painted and topped with a moulded eaves course. All sections of the roof are slated with red clay parapets and ridge tiles to all sections. To the front (N) of the main section of the roof there are two large but relatively narrow hipped roof dormers with 2/2 sash windows to the front of each and the sides glazed (with the glazing arranged in long narrow panes. The roofs of the dormers are slated with red clay ridge tiles with simple finials. There are two (gable) brick chimneystacks to the main roof, with another set lengthways on the right of the return (each with stepped corbelling). Cast iron rw goods.

The front elevation is asymmetrical and faces roughly N. To the left of centre on the ground floor is a pedestrian doorway with panelled timber double door and a boarded over segmental fanlight above. To the left of this is a relatively large segmental headed window with a mullioned and transomed frame with three small panes over a full rectangular one. The central of the upper panes opens in hopper fashion. The large lower pane is a relatively recent replacement- originally there were three panes (separated by two mullions). The window has a flush bevelled sill and bevelled edges to the reveals. To the right of the doorway is a window identical to that to left with another doorway to far right as before but with glazed upper panels to the door and a fully exposed two pane fanlight. There is a moulded string course above the ground floor openings. This course follows the curve of the segmental heads of the openings.

To far left on the first floor is a pair of relatively tall, narrow, segmental arched plain sash windows on a shared sill. The windows have bevelled edge reveals as ground floor. To the right of this pair is an identical single window, with another pair to right again and another single window to far right. These openings are topped with a string course similar to that at ground floor (but angular) in line with the flat arches of the windows). There is a straight string course directly below first floor sill level.

The broad E gable has a 2/2 sash window to left on the ground floor. To far right is a small plain lean-to without openings. To left on the first floor is a narrow window with modern frame, to right of this is a much narrower window with 2/2 sash frame, whilst to centre right is a broader window with modern frame. To left of centre at attic level there is a sash window with Georgian-type panes (3/3). The gable and lean-to are finished in plain painted render.

Much of the rear elevation is covered by a broad two storey gabled return, with a much narrower mono-pitched roof two storey section to its W side. The latter section is only exposed to the S side, where, to ground floor, there is a small lean-to porch with plain timber sheeted door, whilst to first floor there is a tall narrow window with relatively recent three pane frame.

The left hand half of the gable of the large return projects. To the ground floor of this half of the gable there is a window with modern six pane frame. To the first floor is a smaller window with modern two pane frame. The ground floor of the right hand side of the gable is covered by a large flat roofed extension. To the W face of this there is a door and a boarded up window. To the S face there is another door, whilst to the E face, (which is flush with the E face of the return itself), there is a large window with modern frame. To the first floor of the right hand side of the gable there is a window with modern frame.

To the E face of the return there is a large sash window (2/2) to the ground floor. This face of the return is flush with the main E gable and it and the E face of the flat roofed extension are rendered and painted as gable itself. The rear elevation is finished in plain unpainted render.

To immediate E of the building there is a vehicle gateway with tall plain timber gates and a tall square pyramidal capped pier to W side with short length of wall to W of this (flush with the front elevation and rendered and painted in same fashion).

Historical information

This property was built in 1901 as a hotel / public house, ('The Cloughmore Wine & Spirit Store'), originally run by a Patrick Brady. It replaced an earlier, smaller, two storey public house which was built some time prior to c.1835. This earlier building is recorded as belonging to a Patrick Smyth in the 1830s, but by the early 1860s the Smyth family had leased it to a John Cull, in whose hands it remained until c.1892.

The present building which Patrick Brady leased from the Smyth family, passed to Catherine Brady in 1914, but was in the hands of a Mr Cooney in 1918 and a Felix Doran in 1929. Some time after this it was acquired by a James Trainor and continued as a hotel / public house until the 1950s. The present caretaker has suggested that either Mr Doran or Mr Trainor may have carried out some internal alterations (i.e. the large ground floor room may have been created from two smaller rooms during their tenures). In c.1955 the property was acquired by the local RC church for use as a parochial hall, with the caretaker originally living within the building. Latterly it has been used by various bodies including the local youth club.

The flat roofed extension to the rear is believed to have been added in the 1930s or 1940s.

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 in 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 PRONI VAL/1B/361 First valuation, Kilbroney parish, c.1835-38
6 PRONI VAL/1D/3/2 First valuation plan of Rostrevor, 1838
7 PRONI VAL/2D/3/13 Second valuation plan of Rostrevor, 1859
8 PRONI VAL/2B/3/? Second valuation, Kilbroney parish, 1861-63
9 PRONI VAL/12B/19/21a-f Annual valuation revision notebooks, 1865-1930
10 PRONI VAL/12E/115/1 Valuation plan of Rostrevor, 1906 (-1935)

Secondary sources
1 Information supplied by present caretaker

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Substantial two and a half storey rendered and gabled hotel / public house of 1901 (now a parochial hall) of relatively plain appearance. This 102 year old building is largely intact externally, the internal layout appears largely original and some detailing survives. Also of interest as a good example of a public building of the period and relatively unaltered.