Riverside Inn

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A three-storey four-bay end-of-terrace Victorian commercial premises built c.1880; rectangular plan form with rear abutments. Located on Church Square, north of Banbridge town centre.

Pitched natural slate roof with clay ridge tiles; smooth rendered chimneystacks with moulded cornicing; projected eaves course and ogee moulded cast-iron rainwater goods. Stucco rendered with long-and-short raised quoins; projected plinth. 1/1 timber sliding sash segmental-arched windows with horns; moulded surrounds with raised key block; painted masonry cill. Replacement front entrance part of modern pub front.

The principal elevation faces northwest and is asymmetrically arranged. The ground floor right comprises a modern pub front comprising four segmental-arched arcade, polished stone pilasters with signage over. Left ground floor are segmental-arched timber sheeted double-leaf doors to coach entrance; moulded archivolt and surrounds with chamfer stops. Over the coach entrance is an oriel with hipped roof and leaded hips; window to the front with slightly narrower windows to the left and right cheeks; continuous plain cill course. Three windows uniformly arranged to the first and second floor left.

The left gable is blank.

The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged; single first floor window to the right. The left portion is abutted by a linear two-storey pitched roof return (part of adjoining nightclub HB17/07/008). The right is abutted by a large hipped roof block with secondary entrance door to the north east elevation; the south east elevation faces into the yard associated with the adjoining building.

Setting

The former building forms part of a terrace to the north part of the town, looking on to Church Square. Linear range of outbuildings abutting the rear terminated by a two-storey hipped roof block; pitched roof and painted smooth render and brick walls; all largely altered with replacement fabric; variety of uses, some of which is incorporated and modernized into the adjacent nightclub (HB17/07/008). Large public carpark to the north.

Roofing: Natural slate
Walling: Stucco
Windows: Timber
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

No. 21 Church Square, a two-storey public house, replaced two houses that had previously stood on the current site from at least 1833. The Townland Valuation town plan (c. 1830) notes that the buildings were utilised as private dwellings and were valued at £7 4s. And £3 8s; the larger of the two buildings was occupied by a Mr. John Flanigan in 1869 who also took over the adjoining building c. 1880.

No. 21 Church Square was constructed by 1880, by that time Flanigan appears to have demolished the former buildings and erected the current late-Victorian structure on the same site; the new property was described in the Annual Revisions as a Ho[use], store off[ice] and sm[all] garden, the value of the site greatly increased to £42 by 1882 as a result of the alteration work. In the 1880s the conversion of the building into a public house and the construction of a number of stores to the rear of the site resulted in the value rising to £48 (an Annual Revisions town plan, dated 1902 – c. 1908, records that No. 21 Church Square possessed a long range of outbuildings (utilised as stores) to the rear of the public house, the majority of which still survive).

The 1901 Census records that John Flanigan (53, Roman Catholic) was employed as a licensed grocer and resided at No. 21 Church Square with his wife Catherine (51) and their large family; Flanigan also employed a number of assistants who boarded at the address. The census building return described the building as a 1st class public house and dwelling which consisted of eight rooms and possessed a stable, two cow houses, a piggery, fowl house, a turf house and a potato house amongst its outbuildings located to the rear. By 1911 the census suggests that Flanigan either operated a public stable for travellers, or operated a horse trading business in tandem with the public house, as the census building return noted that the outbuilding range at the rear of the dwelling consisted of 14 stables, as well as a cow house, piggery and a boiling house; however the 1910 Ulster Town Directory and the 1911 census describe Flanigan as a merchant and a spirit dealer.

John Flanigan continued to occupy No. 21 Church Square until 1919 when he and his family moved to Ballyvally House (HB17/04/009) where they resided until 1926 (however, John Flanigan died in 1920 – PRONI Wills). Upon vacating the site No. 21 Church Square was occupied by a Mr. James [McGrady] who continued to occupy the site until the end of the Annual Revisions in 1930. By 1935 the public house had passed to the Keenan family who lived there and operated the pub (under the name ‘the Riverside Inn’) until at least the First Survey in 1969.

In 1969 Brett described the building as a ‘dignified three-storey Victorian stucco house of c. 1870 with a fine two-storied oriel bay and excellent floral keystones, recently debased by a garish and totally unsuitable ground floor refronting of the pub’ (Brett, p. 8). The ground floor of No. 21 Church Square continues to be utilised as a public house, however the upper floor are currently utilised as office space; a coach arch that originally provided access to the rear stables has been boarded up. Field inspection has found that No. 21 Church Street was formerly used as a funeral parlour, although no evidence of this use could be found in any of the primary sources associated with the building. The former long range of stores and stables to the rear of the building still survives although a number of the original buildings along this length have either been replaced by modern stores, or have fallen into a state of disrepair.

References

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/27/1 – First edition Ordnance Survey map 1833
2. PRONI OS/6/3/27/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey map 1860
3. PRONI OS/6/3/27/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey map 1903-1918
4. PRONI VAL/1/B/348/A – Townland Valuations c. 1830
5. PRONI VAL/1/D/3/3 – Banbridge Town Plan c. 1830
6. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/64/C – Griffith’s Valuation c. 1863
7. PRONI VAL/12/E/119/2/6 – Annual Revisions Town Plan 1902 – c. 1908
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/6/A – Annual Revisions 1864-1874
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/6/B – Annual Revisions 1874-1884
10. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/6/D – Annual Revisions 1885-1894
11. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/8/A – Annual Revisions 1894-1898
12. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/7/A – Annual Revisions 1899-1910
13. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/7/B – Annual Revisions 1911-1922
14. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/7/C – Annual Revisions 1921-1930
15. PRONI VAL/3/B/4/3 – First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland 1935
16. Ulster Street Directories (1901-1918)
17. PRONI Wills Catalogue (25 May 1920)
18. Census of Ireland (1901 / 1911)
19. First Survey Record – HB17/07/005 (1969)
20. Ordnance Survey map – 220-8 (1969)

Secondary Sources

1. Brett, C. E. B., ‘List of historic buildings, groups of buildings, areas of architectural importance in the Borough of Banbridge’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1969.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A three-storey four-bay former end-of-terrace Victorian commercial premises built c.1880. Externally simple Victorian ornamentation has survived, although the styling of the pub frontage detracts from its historic character and the interior has been largely modified with only a few elements of historic fabric remaining. However, it is of some note as a domestic dwelling converted to a public house and represents the development of the town in Victorian times.