35 Irish Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A terraced three-storey single-bay eighteenth-century house, now in commercial use, located on the south-west side of Irish Street, Downpatrick. Rectangular plan with substantial full-height rear return set on a slight skew.

Pitched natural slate roof with raised cement verge and single rendered chimneystack to north-west gable. Half-round cast-iron rainwater goods. Painted smooth-rendered walling over a contrasting plinth to principal elevation. Windows are a variety of timber sashes with horns and painted masonry cills, except where otherwise stated.

Principal elevation faces north-east and has two openings to each floor; upper floors have 1/1 timber sashes; ground floor has a modern glazed timber entrance door to left and an enlarged casement window to right.

Left gable is abutted by a slightly taller building; right gable by a slightly lower building.

The rear is extended by a full-width return which has a second formal entrance opening onto the yard of the adjoining building to S, which is accessed via an entry. It has two windows to upper floors; 6/6 to first floor, 2/2 to second floor, all with exposed boxes and horns. Ground floor has an elliptical-headed door opening to right, with replacement door and sidelights, but retaining pilastered surround and spoked fanlight with crown glazing, all over dressed granite steps. There is an infilled rectangular opening to its left and a uPVC casement to extreme left. The rear elevation of the return has a window to second floor; the north elevation could not be viewed but interior inspection shows 4/2 sashes set at an angle to upper floors.

Setting:
Set within a terrace of similar buildings on Irish Street; street fronted. To rear, the return is abutted by a substantial range of low two-storey terraced buildings, opening onto a narrow ‘street’ which is enclosed on the opposite side by the rear rubble stone walls of outbuildings on the neighbouring plot. The buildings are derelict and overgrown, but have the remains of slated roofs, limewashed lime-rendered walling, and timber-framed windows.

Materials:
Roof: Slate
RWG: Cast iron
Walling: Rendered, painted (E); unpainted (W)
Windows: Timber, with one uPVC casement to GF return

Historical information

Irish Street was laid out in the early eighteenth century, and the plot is clearly developed on a town map of 1720, with row of buildings shown to rear. To the front of this building was the 'Shambles', the town's market area. A drawing of the town dating from c.1830 (showing the new hospital buildings) also shows a number of buildings in Irish Street with linear ranges to the rear; map evidence consistently shows that the range attached to No.35 was particularly long (and it likely to survive only in part). The former townhouse is shown on the first edition OS map (1832-33), having a rectangular footprint, with a row of linear outbuildings and shared garden plot to the rear, extending south and accessed from Irish Street via a lane to the east (in No.37).

The Townland Valuations (c.1834) and the associated map show that the house and outbuildings at No.35 were occupied by a Henry and Rowland Quail John Lloyd and were given a rateable value of £24. The Street Directories (1843) show that Rowland and a James Quail operated as cabinet-makers and upholsterers. Griffith’s Valuation (c.1860) notes a slight decline in valuation to £21, perhaps reflecting a reduction in the number of outbuildings to the rear, which is further reduced to £16 in the Annual Revision of 1880, perhaps for the same reason. By 1860 the house was occupied by a surgeon, Andrew McEwen, who, as the Street Directories show, operated a medical hall (a place to buy medicines), on the premises. McEwen was replaced by Benjamin Morrow in 1867, and since that time the house and medical hall were occupied by a succession of pharmaceutical chemists until at least the 1930s.

Census records show that whilst much of Irish Street contained commercial units on the ground floor, No.35 was listed a ‘private residence’ until at least 1911, comprising ten rooms with two sheds and two stores to the rear. It is therefore unclear as to when the ground floor shopfront was inserted.

During the latter half of the 20th century, the upper floors were converted into offices and a modern shopfront inserted.

References

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/8/9/14 Town Plan (1859)
2. PRONI OS/8/9/2 Town Plan (1901)
3. PRONI VAL/1/D/3/7 Townland Valuation Map (c.1834)
4. PRONI VAL/1/B/378 Townland Valuation (c.1834)
5. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/78C Griffith’s Valuation (c.1863)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/18/7A-K Annual Revisions (1864-1930)
7. Census Records (1901 & 1911)
8. Ulster Town Directories (1861-1943)

Secondary Sources:
Wilson, A: St Patrick's Town (Isabella Press, 1995)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
X. Local Interest
S. Authenticity

Evaluation

35 Irish Street is a narrow three-storey single-bay eighteenth-century terraced house, now in commercial use, located close to the commercial core of Downpatrick. Despite alterations which have resulted in loss of most of the original ground floor detailing, the house retains some early fabric, including a finely crafted curved staircase and original plasterwork. The layout of the building is also highly unusual, with the formal entrance located to the yard elevation. Interest is also enhanced by the apparent survival of a ‘street’ of diminutive terraced dwellings or outbuildings attached to rear and largely concealed by undergrowth. The former house represents an early and rare survival in an Ulster context, and enhances the historic character of the Conservation Area.