Garage, 22 Dundalk Street, Newtownhamilton, Newry BT35 0PB

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

NOTE: Since the date of survey the painted shop signage on the front elevation has been painted over and replaced by modern attached signage. The full description below refers to the building at the date of the full survey.

Terraced two-storey over basement former Motor Depot, built pre-1830, situated on the east side of Dundalk Street, Newtownhamilton, Co. Armagh.

Pitched natural slate roof with clay ridge tiles; rendered chimneystack with granite capping to north party wall; uPVC rainwater goods to plain eaves; mixture of uPVC and cast-iron downpipes. Walling is painted render with painted signage reading ‘STEEN’S MOTOR DEPOT’.

Principal elevation faces west. Ground-floor shopfront comprises recessed entrance; central square-headed door opening with timber surround with double-leaf four-panelled timber door with glazing to upper panels under plain overlight; principal entrance flanked by two square-headed window openings with timber surrounds with large plate glass windows over masonry stall risers; two narrow square-headed door openings flank main entrance to north and south containing timber doors with mesh panels with concrete blocks to northernmost door opening; aluminium cage to front containing petrol pump behind. Square-headed window opening with metal lintel containing timber-framed linear window with eight glazed panels to first floor.

Rear elevation (east) is rubble stone walling with timber eaves. Central square-headed door opening with iron lintel containing double-leaf iron doors to basement. Square-headed window openings; single timber fixed-pane window with latticed iron grille over and single timber six-over-one sliding sash window to ground floor; two top hung timber casements to first floor.

North and south elevations form party walls with flanking properties; Number 20 (N) and Number 24 (S).

Setting

Number 22 is located on the main street running through the town of Newtownhamilton. Front opens onto tarmacadam pavement with residential properties on both sides and on opposite side of road. Bounded to rear by large grassy area with boundary wall.
Number 23 (HB16/18/026) directly opposite also bears signage with the name ‘STEEN’.

Materials:
Roof: Natural slate (original)
RWG: Cast-iron/uPVC (replacement)
Walling: Painted render/rubble stone
Windows: Timber (replacement)

Historical information

A ‘garage and yard’, in the hands of John Steen, is noted for the first time in the ‘General revaluation’ book of 1935. Prior to this, this site had been occupied by a dwelling house, which appears to have remained generally unaltered since at least the early 1860s, and which had gone through a long line of occupants in the later 19th and early 20th centuries - John Finnigan 1871, Patrick [?Lawell] 1872, Samuel Bailie 1874, John Kane 1877, James Neill 1879, James Nugent 1888, Patrick McGeown 1879, Patrick [?Clernan] 1904, Edward Boyle 1906, [?] Macken (‘tailor’) 1909, Michael Slane c.1910, Sarah [?West] 1914 and James Toner 1915.

John Steen (d.1950), who described himself in the 1911 census as a ‘grocer and bootmaker’, and who owned a shop almost directly opposite (present no.21-23 Dundalk Street - HB16/18/026) seems to have acquired the lease of the property later in 1915. In the 1918 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory’ he is also noted as a ‘cycle agent’, which could suggest that he was using his new premises for this aspect of the business. Sometime between 1929 and 1935 he either rebuilt or converted / remodelled the old house into the present ‘motor depot’, (at any rate the changes would appear to have been so extensive as to practically constitute a rebuild.) He ran garage along with his son, Robert James Steen (d.1979), the pair also operating a bus and taxi service in the area. After the latter’s death the garage continued to be operated by his son James (‘Jimmy’) Steen until the early 2000s.

References - Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/1/B/242A-B First valuation, Newtownhamilton parish, 1836
2 PRONI VAL/1/D/2/10 Valuation town plan of Newtownhamilton, c.1838
3 PRONI VAL/2/B/2/16D Second valuation, Newtownhamilton parish, c.1860
4 PRONI VAL/12/E/77/1-2 Valuation town plan of Newtownhamilton, c.1864
5 PRONI VAL/12/B/12/8A-E Annual valuation revision books, 1864-1929
6 Census of Ireland, 1911 - see http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie
7 ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory for 1918’,
8 PRONI VAL/3B/2/10 First general revaluation of Northern Ireland, 1935
9 ‘Ballymena Weekly Telegraph’, 26 October 1935, p.4
10 PRONI VAL/3C/2/15 First general revaluation of Northern Ireland, 1936-57
11 ‘Belfast News-Letter’, 15 August 1950, p.1

Online sources
12 https://www.armaghi.com/news/newtownhamilton-news/tributes-paid-to-james-steen-one-of-newtownhamilton-and-lifes-gentlemen/100810 [accessed 24/08/2021]

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
E. Spatial Organisation
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
Z. Rarity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

NOTE: Since the date of survey the painted shop signage on the front elevation has been painted over and replaced by modern attached signage. The evaluation below refers to the building at the date of the full survey.

Terraced two-storey former Motor Depot, built pre-1830, but adapted to a garage in the 1930s, situated on the east side of Dundalk Street, Newtownhamilton, Co. Armagh, within a terrace of similar scaled buildings. The front façade retains historic painted lettering (‘STEEN’S MOTOR DEPOT’) as well as a recessed entrance and historic petrol pump. Internally it retains its plan form and some original features, consistent with the modest nature of its function.
This is a rare example of an early 1930s garage / petrol station in an urban context utilising the naïve, vernacular ‘deco’ elements that seems to have characterised the adaptation of existing buildings to such uses at this time. Nos 21-23 Dundalk Street (HB16/18/026), directly opposite, also bears the Steen name, and has a historical connection to the garage. The garage served a social function in the town and is of local architectural and historic interest.