Crown Hotel

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Building demolished and replaced with modern structure.

Historical information

The 1836 Ordnance Survey Memoir notes that this two-storey inn was established around 1795. The 1863 Valuation notes that "no business here except for about three months in summer".

HMBB first survey card states, “c1770 A two storey building with rendered walls and slated roof. Elevation to square is part gabled. Pilasters with moulded capitals flank annex window and rise to entablature. There are raised quoins to gabled corner. Double hung windows with plain sashes are framed with square moulded architraves, keystones over. Plain side elevation with coloured glass to top lights of three ground floor windows.”

The HMBB first survey slide shows a two storey / three bay building fronting The Square. Its left bay seems later and is two windows wide. Its central bay is three openings wide and its right bay is gabled and on the corner of Mary Street, it being two windows wide. Pitched natural slate roof with large chimney between left and central bays and another on front gable, all the Victorian pots and moulded copings. Walls are rendered and painted. All front windows are 1/1 sashes with moulded Victorian architraves and keystones. Ground floor left bay has a shop unit of coachway with a similar architrave. Above, at first floor, is a pair of windows. Central bay has three openings to each floor, with middle ones set to left of centre; all are windows but for that at bottom right which is a doorway with pitched roof canopy porch. The right bay has two windows on each floor; the right ones are set close to the right corner. A dwarf wall with plain 20thC spiked railings encloses small paved area to front. Right elevation to Mary Street has numerous sash windows without architraves and a doorway at extreme right at ground floor.

A late 19thC Lawrence photograph shows this building clearly, with openings as described above but without the left bay. The second opening from left on its right elevation is a doorway.

The 1835 O.S. Memoir states that the building was a two storey house, with billiard room, kept by Andrew Sim and rented from John Turner. The earliest lease on the building dates back to 1823 when the building was known as Morrison’s Tenement. According to this lease, its main front was to Mary Street (then called George’s Lane), which was at that time the main road to Rostrevor.

The business stayed in the Sim family until 1866 when Hugh Montgomery took over. Competition between the Crown and The Royal Hotel was keen in the 1870s. Each was constantly advertising in the local papers the merits and attractiveness of its salty baths. Hugh Montgomery died in 1895 and the property was sold to a Robert Sim who upgraded the interior and sold it on within two years. John Dale took over in 1898. On the death of Dale the property was sold to Patrick O’Neill who, while still manager, became MP for the Irish Parliamentary Party at Stormont; visitors to the hotel at that time included Prime Minister Craigavon.

Destroyed by a terrorist bomb on 8 February 1982.

Primary sources:
1. Ordnance Survey Memoir, Warrenpoint Parish (1836).
2. Second Valuation, 1863 (PRONI, VAL/2B/3/65B, p.4).

Secondary sources:
1. HMBB first survey card dated 1/12/1969.
2. HMBB survey slide dated 1/12/1969.
3. L. Bradley, ‘Warrenpoint, Origins and Developments’, (1998), p.24, p.39, p.195, p.204.
4. Lawrence photograph no. 1270 (National Library of Ireland).
5. T. O’Neill, ‘The Crown Hotel’, in Warrenpoint Historical Group Magazine, vol.12, Spring 1993.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Building was subject to a terrorist firebomb attack and was delisted and demolished afterwards.