NEWPORT HOUSE

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached asymmetrical two-storey three-bay rendered early nineteenth-century house, facing east on the west side of Culcavy Road with two-storey canted bay to the south and single-storey canted bay projection to the north. Rectangular on plan with range of single and two-storey rendered outbuildings to the rear.

Pitched natural slate roof (concrete tiled to rear) to the central body of the house with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles, hipped to both canted projections with lead ridges. Two rendered chimneystacks to either end of the central block with terracotta pots. Ruled and lined rendered walling with vermiculated rusticated quoins to the central block. Square-headed window openings with timber sash windows and painted masonry sills.

Front east elevation comprises a central three-bay two-storey block with gabled entrance porch. Generally tripartite timber sash windows to this section diminishing in size to the upper floor (1/1 to ground floor, 3/3 with single paned sidelights to first floor, single 3/3 to first floor centre). To the south gable is a taller two-storey three-sided canted bay with single-pane timber sash windows, to the north gable a further single-storey three-sided canted projection also with single-pane timber sash windows.

Rear west elevation is abutted by single-storey lean-to extension with concrete tiled roof and replacement uPVC windows, some enlarged. Abutting the north end of the house is a two-storey rendered outbuilding with pitched natural slate roof and early 6/6 timber sash windows with exposed sash boxes.

Setting:
Small concrete paved yard opens onto a larger bitmac paved yard all enclosed by various single and two-storey outbuildings. Attached to the house is a two-storey gabled structure (former coal merchant’s shop) with carved timber bargeboard, timber multi-paned sliding sash window to first floor, natural slate roof and painted rendered walls; abutted at ninety degrees by a further 1 ½ storey gabled outbuilding with corrugated metal to north facing roof slope, whitewashed roughcast rendered walls and stone steps leading to sheeted timber door at loft to W gabled end. Wrought iron gates on substantial square pillars span between this building and the barn enclosing the north side of the yard. The latter is comprised of a 1 ½ storey painted brick gabled bay to the east side with traditional agricultural sheeted timber sliding doors; a lower random rubble-stone west bay with red brick dressings to openings and traditional cut timber roof with pegged joints; both sides are connected by a door at loft level and both have natural slate roofs. The barn and former shop appear for the first time on the 1856 OS map.

A series of taller outbuildings with corrugated metal to barrel vaulted roofs enclose the yard along its south and west sides; these appear for the first time on the 1902 OS map; that to south is red brick with yellow brick dressings and that to west has a cat-slide mono-pitched roof projecting in to the yard; walls and doors also clad in painted corrugated metal. Within this mono-pitched projection, there is a Belfast Truss Roof with further ‘v’ profile trusses running parallel below; the latter are possibly feeders.

Front bitmac avenue set perpendicular to the road runs along the north side elevation of the house enclosed by hedge which terminates in a simple cast iron railing and gate set between tapered octagonal posts and leading to the front entrance.
Hedging also encloses the front lawn, which is divided by a single footpath opening onto the road via a decorative iron pedestrian gate.
On the opposite side of the bitmac avenue is a former orchard, accessed via a further decorative iron gate, set within a red brick arched opening.

Historical information

This house is located a matter of metres from where the Lagan Navigation (completed 1794) once flowed, and takes its name – ‘Newport’ – from an adjacent canal basin and bridge, the latter (this stretch of the canal officially opened in early 1794) marked on the first edition OS map of 1833 as ‘Newport Bridge’. As such, the history of the building is largely bound up with the canal, and it is more than likely that it was built in connection with some aspect of the water-borne trade.

Nothing is depicted in the vicinity on James Williamson's county map of 1810, but on the first edition OS map of 1833 an L-shaped structure which would appear to correspond to the present main front section and the return to the north, is shown. The information relating to Culcavy townland within the first valuation book of c.1835-38 is somewhat confusing due to the valuers having reworked their reference system for this particular area shortly after they carried out their initial survey, and consequently it is difficult to identify this building with certainty. They do tell us that it was occupied by a Jeremiah Harvey, but the details of the building itself (dimensions etc.) do not seem to have been recorded, or were either mistakenly omitted, or lost.

Jeremiah Harvey ‘of Newport’ is mentioned in a notice about a stolen or strayed horse in the Belfast News-Letter in November 1796, and is recorded as a ‘coal merchant’ in Culcavy in a document of November 1810 [PRONI D671/D/14/4/37], and is again referred to as ‘of Newport’ in the Belfast Commercial Chronicle in June 1821, so it is likely that a house of some description existed throughout this period. An auction notice in the Northern Whig dated 24th July 1842 for ‘Newport House and farm’ refers to the property as ‘most admirably situated for general business, which was extensively carried on by the late Mr Harvey for fully fifty years...the late proprietor having supplied the neighbourhood and adjoining districts with all those articles [‘coals, iron, timber etc.]; so it would seem that Harvey had been established in the vicinity in the early 1790s (as the notice of 1796 would seem to confirm), and therefore that this property may - in part at least – date from this time.

On the revised OS map of 1858 an additional return to the southern end of the house is shown, with the plan of the building roughly similar to the present, but without the attached outbuildings to the rear. The valuation of 1861 notes the owner as Jacob Green, who appears to have carried on the coal trade established by Jeremiah Harvey. A note by the valuer refers to a ‘new addition building’, indicating that the property was being extended at this time, whilst an annotation of April 1863 mentions a ‘new house in progress’ a two-storey structure measuring 10yds x 6½. There measurements appear to match the taller two-storey section to the southern end of the property, a section which looks as though it is of the 1860s. As a result of this extension the rateable value of the building rose from £10 to £18.

In 1878 the annual valuation revisions record a new occupier - Henry J Wardell. By 1881 by this point a new shop (to the northwestern end of the house) and outbuildings had been added, pushing up the rateable value to £24. In 1890 the property was taken over by the East Downshire Steamship company, at which point Edwin G. Sands took up residency as the company’s coal agent for the area, in what was then recorded as the ‘Manager's House’. The OS maps of 1902-03 show that by this point there had been further expansion to the rear. Further improvements by 1929 the buildings were valued at £35.
The Industrial Archaeology of County Down (p.74) notes that Newport was one of several landing places on the Lagan Navigation Canal, and that a large coal-store was put up shortly after the First World War. By 1954 the Lagan Navigation Canal company was wound up with navigation abandoned on the strip of canal adjacent the house in 1956.

Newport House is a private residence, at the time of the survey (2010).

Primary Reference:
1.Belfast News-Letter, 7-11 November 1796
2.PRONI D671/D/14/4/37 (1810)
3.Belfast Commercial Chronicle, 20 June 1821
4.PRONI OS/6/3/14/1 – OS Map 1833
5.The Northern Whig, 11 September 1842
6.PRONI OS/6/3/14/2 – OS Map 1858
7.PRONI OS/6/3/14/3 – OS Map 1902-03
8.PRONI OS/6/3/14/4 – OS Map 1919-20
9.PRONI VAL/1/B/339 – Townland Valuation 1824-40
10.PRONI VAL/1/A/3/14 – Townland Valuation Field Map 1830
11.PRONI VAL/2/B/3/43 – Griffiths Valuation 1861
12.PRONI VAL/12/B/20/16A-E – Annual Revisions 1866-29
13.PRONI VAL/12/D/3/14A – Annual Valuation Field Map c.1860-77

Secondary Reference:

1. Green, E.R.R “The industrial Archaeology of County Down” Ministry of Finance, 1963

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Detached two-storey three-bay rendered early nineteenth-century house on the Culcavy Road, named after an adjacent canal basin and bridge ‘Newport’ (now infilled), with later two-storey canted bay to the south and single-storey canted bay projection to the north, added by 1858. The canted bays somewhat dwarf the much earlier central block, but nonetheless together form an attractive composition on a landscaped rural site. Despite some inappropriate replacement materials to the rear, the house remains well proportioned with good quality detailing. Historic links with the adjacent Lagan Navigational canal mean the house is of significant local interest. Outbuildings associated with the former coal yard, in particular the barn and coal merchant’s shop, add significant value and decorative iron gates to the front and side of the house considerably enhance the character of its setting.