48 Main Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

An end of terrace street-fronted two-storey three-bay nineteenth-century building, formally two dwellings, now shop, located east of Main Street in the centre of Scarva Village. Rectangular plan.

Pitched natural slate roof with blue/black angled ridge tiles and rendered chimneystacks. uPVC rainwater goods. Walling is painted smooth render. Windows are replacement timber casements throughout with projecting sills.

The principal elevation faces west. To first floor are two large windows (widely spaced); to left at ground floor is a modern shop front with plate-glass window and modern metal door. To centre is a replacement timber door with sidelights, accessed via two stone steps. To right is a paired window (partially boarded).

The north gable is abutted by adjoining building (HB17/03/034).

The east (rear) elevation was not accessed.

The south gable is abutted by a single storey flat roofed garage; exposed section blank.

Setting

Sited at the centre of Scarva, opposite the junction with Station Road, forming part of a terrace which includes St Matthews Parochial Hall (HB17/03/033). To rear of the building is St Matthews Church (HB17/03/037), the spire of which is visible over the roofline.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Render
Windows: Replacement timber
RWG: uPVC

Historical information

The building, now a village shop, was formerly two dwellings. The building has been altered and its age is uncertain but its location near the bridge over the canal suggests it may be one of the earlier buildings in the town as this was where the early development of Scarva was concentrated. Buildings are shown on the site on Taylor and Skinner’s map of 1777.

The village of Scarva was founded, beside the newly-opened Newry Canal, in 1746 by John Reilly of Scarva House and it is likely that some of the current buildings along Scarva’s Main Street date from this period. The impetus for building the town came from the opening of the Newry Canal in 1742 to connect Carlingford Lough with Lough Neagh, principally as a means to bring coal from east Tyrone to Dublin speedily and inexpensively. (McCutcheon) John Reilly, the founder of the town procured a patent for holding fairs and markets, in anticipation of building the town, and to build a small dock and quay, but by 1875 the market was no longer being held. The 1797 Topographica Hibernica describes Scarva as a ‘small neat village’ with a large ‘salt work’. Fairs were held four times a year. Capper’s Topographical Dictionary gives the population of Scarva in 1829 as 170 living in 33 houses. By 1875 traffic along the Newry Canal was bringing cargoes of turf to Scarva, using the dock and quay for lighters. (Knox) The population remained reasonably steady over the course of the nineteenth century and in 1910 was 157. (Street Directory)

A building is shown on the site on the 1st edition OS map of 1834 and is listed in the Townland Valuation of 1828-40 as exempt, not reaching the threshold for valuation. In Griffith’s Valuation the building is listed as two houses of a similar size and valued at £2 and £2.5s. The landlord is Robert Taylor, postmaster and the rent 1s.3d weekly. Occupiers are George Crozier then Margaret Hawthorne and Michael Caulfield. Subsequent occupiers are James Gordon (1867) and Sarah Boyd (1867) but in 1878 the buildings are valued with the neighbouring Temperance Hotel at £15.5s and were then operating as a post office and general store with a mission hall to the rear. From this point only one occupier is listed for the three dwellings, initially Robert Taylor and after his death his wife Mary Anne Taylor (1902). Subsequent occupiers were Samuel J Mimms (1907) Anne Taylor (1908) Thomas W Dunlop (1919) and Marjory Dunlop (1920) and the premises remained in the Dunlop family until at least the 1950s.

Towards the end of his life, Robert Taylor achieved national fame due to his longevity. Although his exact age remained uncertain, in 1898 newspapers throughout the British Isles reported that Mr Robert Taylor the postmaster of Scarva had reached an age of between 114 and 134. He was said to be ‘Her Majesty’s Oldest Subject’ and it was noted that he could rehearse many exciting scenes in his early life as a Volunteer and could still sound his old Volunteer bugle call. Robert Taylor’s fame spread to Queen Victoria who sent him a framed portrait of herself due to his ‘almost unprecedented age’ and asked for his photograph in return. (Dundee Courier) The Methodist Conference congratulated Mr Robert Taylor “on having attained through God’s preserving care the position of being the oldest postmaster in the service of her Majesty Queen Victoria and the oldest member of the Methodist Church in Ireland. We gratefully acknowledge his unswerving loyalty to Methodism, evinced in the erection and maintenance of a hall for public worship on his own property” (Belfast Newsletter) Robert Taylor died on 25th July 1898, while still holding the postmastership of Scarva, and his death was reported as the ‘Death of the Oldest Man in the Three Kingdoms’. (Freeman’s Journal)

Young and Quail’s collection of photographs of Scarva shows several views of the current building which was slightly altered before the first survey image was taken (1975). The building originally had two doorways, the central, now the only, doorway providing access to the mission hall and a door to the left opening into the shop and post office. By 1975 the second doorway had been replaced by a window and today the door and window openings have been further altered.

The 1901 street directory lists as one of the principal buildings of the town, the Methodist Mission Hall erected by the late Mr Robert Taylor, the aged postmaster, on his private grounds. Taylor also ran a ‘most comfortable, homelike temperance hotel and bathroom in conjunction with which is a post office with money order and telegraphic departments.'
The 1901 census lists the postmistress as Mary Anne Taylor. She is living with her sister, Eliza Dunlop who worked in the shop and she employed a 17-year-old girl as a telegraph clerk. A cousin was also living with them and working as a bookkeeper. By 1911 the occupier was Thomas Wilson Dunlop, a relative of Mary Anne Taylor. He was a general merchant who ran the premises as a shop and temperance hotel. He lived with his young American wife and also living at the house were a domestic servant and two young girls of 16 and 19 who were working as a grocer’s apprentice and a postal assistant respectively.

At the time of the First General Revaluation in 1933/4 the current building was operating as a combined shop and post office. Marjory Dunlop is the occupier then Ann Brierly Dunlop in fee and the premises, which includes the neighbouring property, is a house, shop, office, post office and garden. The buildings are revalued at £35. The large room at the rear of the shop was still occasionally used as a mission hall and the post office was within the shop. The post office subsequently moved to number 30 but the current building remains in use as the village shop.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/33/1 First Edition OS Map 1834
2. PRONI OS/6/3/33/2 Second Edition OS map 1860
3. PRONI OS/6/3/33/3 Third Edition OS Map 1903
4. PRONI OS/6/3/33/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1903-18
5. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/55D Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/22A-D Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
7. PRONI VAL/3/C/4/3 - First General Revaluation (1936-57)
8. PRONI VAL/3/D/ 4/3/S/6 – First General Revaluation (1933-57)
9. Huddersfield Daily Chronicle March 7th 1898
10. Irish Times 3rd May 1898
11. Dundee Courier & Argus 4th May 1898
12. Belfast Newsletter 23rd June 1898
13. Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser 27th July 1898
14. Taylor and Skinner’s Map of the Roads of Ireland, 1777
15. Capper, B.P. “A Topographical Dictionary of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland” London: Sir Richard Phillips and Co, 1829
16. Seward, W W “Topographica Hibernica” Dublin, 1797
17. Young, A F and Quail, D “Old Gilford, Scarva, Loughbrickland and Lawrencetown” Stenlake Publishing, 2002
18. Street Directory, 1910

Secondary Sources

1. Knox, Alexander, M.D. “A History of the County of Down” Dublin: Hodges, Foster & Co, 1875
2. McCutcheon, W.A. “The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland,” London: HMSO, 1980.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A terraced street-fronted two-storey three-bay nineteenth-century former Post Office, now shop. Extensively altered and refurbished over the years, the building now functions as a modern shop. Much of the original character has been compromised and the building is no longer of special architectural or historic interest.