20 The Square Rostrevor BT34 3AZ

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Informal two-storey end of terrace house of probable pre-1830s construction, converted to its present use as a café c.2022.

SETTING At the centre of the village of Rostrevor, on the N side of The Square.

GENERAL The building consists of the main two-storey gable-ended front block facing S into The Square and a full-height back return. There appears to be a small single-storey extension to the rear (N) end of the return. To the rear of the property is a long narrow strip plot with some outbuildings to the S end and a long garden to N of this.

FRONT (S) ELEVATION Asymmetric. Right of centre entrance with relatively recent panelled timber door and boarded up overlight. Smaller doorway (presumably an access to the rear) to far right with timber T&G door. Two windows of slightly differing widths - but both roughly ‘standard’ ratio - to left of entrance with timber 6/6 sash frames and painted stone cills. Three similar windows to the first floor, none of which are in line with any of the ground level openings; the cills of the upper windows are broader than their respective openings, whilst those below match the width of their openings. This elevation is finished plain painted render.

W ELEVATION The gable of the main front block of the building faces into a narrow passage. It is rendered and appears to be devoid of openings. The rest of the elevation could not be observed, nor could anything of the rear elevation.

ROOF etc The main block has a double-pitch roof covered in asbestos tiles (to front at least). Two rendered chimneystacks. Cast-iron downspout and PVC guttering to front.

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 being occupied by a relatively new ‘house [with shop], offices and yard’ in the hands of Thomas Hill, with the main section measuring 15ft x 22 x 15½, a portion ‘over gate’ of 8 x 22 x 7½, a return of 10 x 15 x 15½ and an ‘office’(i.e. outbuilding) amounting to 10 x 15 x 8½. These dimensions (which are repeated in the 1861 valuation), along with the present informal appearance of the front elevation suggests that the building of 1834 is largely that we see today.

By 1861 the property (a ‘small grocery shop’) was being leased by Robert Aiken from William Sanxter. Sanxter (who owned a hotel a few doors down – formerly on the site of current nos.12-14 The Square), retained an outbuilding ‘in rere’ of 8½yds x 5½ x 1½[storeys], whilst attached to the gable of the main front block there was now another separate concern – a small ‘office and weigh bridge’ leased directly from the Ross estate by John Hill.

The sequence of residents over the next two decades is not entirely clear, but Mr. Aiken appears to have been succeeded at some point c.1866 by [Robert?] Fagan, followed by possibly by a Mr. Emerson c.1867, Edward McCullagh c.1870, [Patrick?] McVeigh c.1877 and Richard Cole c.1882. In the 1901 census, Mr. Cole, a retired 76yr-old widower, was living here with his unmarried daughter, Margaret Cole, a grandson, Matthew Cole, and two ‘boarders’ – John and William Greene, with the building itself noted as a ‘2nd class’ slate-roofed dwelling with seven rooms in use.

Richard Cole died c.1907 and in the 1911 census the occupants are listed as Margaret Cole and her nephew Matthew, along with the latter’s wife and infant daughter (both also named Margaret Cole). The eldest Margaret is still listed as householder in 1930, but had been succeeded by Matthew by 1936, who was in turn followed by Edward Cole in 1960, who was still residing here in 1972.

In more recent years the property appears to have been used as a barber’s and is now a coffee shop.

The small office / weighbridge addition to the western side of the property first noted in the 1861 valuation appears to have remained in place into the early 20th century.

THE SQUARE / CHURCH STREET The north-east to south-west line of what is now Church street and The Square is not depicted on Sloane’s or Kennedy’s maps of of 1739 and 1755, appearing for the first time on an estate map of 1767. It is probable that the thoroughfare was established as part of the laying out - or upgrading - of the road (present B25 Kilbroney Road) linking Rostrevor to the new village of Hilltown, which began to be developed by Wills Hill (later 1st Marquis of Downshire) in the 1760s. As its generous breadth - and name - suggests it is likely that it was also intended to act as a market place, and it is perhaps no coincidence that in April 1769 Rostrevor’s then landlord, Robert Ross, obtained a patent allowing him to hold a weekly market and quarterly fairs within the settlement.

The 1767 map shows the eastern and western sides seemingly developed as far as the present extent to the south-west and to the site of the current parish church in the north-east. The church itself was completed in 1821, forming a ‘closing of the vista’ of the broader portion of the street.

By the time of the 1834 OS map the extent of development we see today was in place, with buildings shown opposite the church and further along the narrower part of the carriageway to the north-east. The OS Memoirs of October 1836 provide what is perhaps the earliest description of this particular part of the town, telling us that ‘“Main Street” runs north-east and south-west, 620 yards in length, the breadth of that part contained between the new and old church (a distance of 180 yards) being 120 feet broad, the remainder averaging 30 feet in breadth. The houses in this street are nearly all 2-storey high and the greater part of them in good order, a number of them having furnished lodgings for the accommodation of strangers in summer. On coming into the town at its lower or south-western extremity, this street presents a grateful “coup d’oeil”, the most pleasing and remarkable object of which is the new church, situated at the extremity of the broadest part of the Street and standing in line with its direction, its body and square tower appearing in good relief against the thick and luxuriant foliage of the trees to the north of the building.’

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, County series, Down sheet 54, 1834, 1902, 1919, 1950
6 PRONI VAL1B/361 First valuation, Kilbroney parish - 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 Second valuation, Kilbroney parish - 1861
9 PRONI VAL12B/19/21A-F Annual valuation revision books, Rostrevor ED - 1865-1929
10 Census of Ireland - 1901, 1911 [http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie, accessed 2023.04.25]
11 PRONI VAL3C/4/23 First general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Rostrevor ED - 1936-57
12 PRONI VAL4B/3/81 Second general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Rostrevor ED - 1956-72

Evaluation

Informal two-storey end of terrace house of probable pre-1830s construction, converted to its present use as a café c.2022. The interior of this building has been radically altered and due to this it does not meet the criteria for listing.

General comments

The interior of this building has been radically altered and due to this it does not meet the criteria for listing.