57 Queen's Parade

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A three-storey two-bay Victorian mid-terrace dwelling, built 1883 and erected as a pair with adjoining building HB23/07/012B. Located adjacent to Marine Gardens, on an elevated site on the Bangor promenade; east of Bangor West and north of the town centre.

Pitched natural slate roof with crested clay ridge. Cast-iron rainwater goods; ogee moulded gutter with circular downpipe. Brick chimney-stack with clay pots, partially rendered at lower stage. Painted dashed and stucco rendered walling with projected plinth course moulded string course and plain corbel course. 1/1 timber sliding sash with horns and rounded corners, to ground and first floor; segmental arched windows to second floor. Principal entrance, timber door with four bolection moulded panels with brass ironmongery; round arched fixed light over.

Principal elevation faces north-east and is asymmetrically arranged. Front door located right; deep inset to moulded stilted round-arch with segmental-arched string course over. Left bay rises to a three-storey, slightly projecting gable, embracing two-storey canted bay with cornice. Bay openings flanked by smooth render pilasters rising to impost level and deep moulded stilted rounded-cornered heads; chamfered cills to ground floor with continuous moulded cill course to first floor. Second floor openings have plain smooth rendered surrounds; paired diminutive narrow sash windows to right hand side (unusually deep set), larger paired segmental arched openings to the left with small paired triangular headed recesses and a painted terracotta brick course in gable apex; heavy rendered coping over. Date inscribed on both buildings stating “18” and “83” respectively, inset into recessed segmental arched panels over first floor windows.

Left elevation is abutted by 56 Queens Parade HB23/07/011J.

The rear elevation is abutted by a two-storey pitched roof return shared with the adjoining owner, with two-storey addition c.1940 extending the full width of the site towards the rear, fully enclosing a small yard. Windows a mixture of 2/2 sliding sash, steel and timber casement. Shared red brick chimney over apex of return. Wall head dormer with segmental arched window to right hand side second floor.

Right elevation is abutted by 58 Queens Parade HB23/07/012B.

Setting

Garden to front with stepped concrete path running parallel to lawn. Rubble masonry boundary wall with rendered coping and piers with modern mild steel gate. Landscaped public gardens north of the site with views towards the marina. South of the site bounded by Somerset Avenue with alley access to rear return. Small rear yard enclosed.

Roofing: Natural slate
Walling: Stucco render/painted dry dash
Windows: Timber
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

This part of Queen’s Parade was developed during the late 1870s and early 1880s to serve the increasing numbers of professional classes and holidaymakers attracted to Bangor with the opening of the railway in 1865. The terrace of which these houses forms part, replaced an earlier row of single storey cottages shown in a photograph dating from the 1870s. (Wilson, p.40) According to Patton one of these cottages was occupied by Thomas Whannell, whose two daughters married builders who worked on Bangor Castle. (Patton, p.180) This part of Bangor was then known as the ‘Kinnegar’ with reference to a coney or rabbit warren that occupied the area prior to its development. The street was renamed following a visit by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra in 1903, and was altered in the valuation records in 1907. (Patton, p.175, Annual Revisions) The majority of the houses in the street were let to families of the professional or petit-bourgeois class, while others were run as boarding houses. (1901, 1911 census) The terrace is first shown on the third edition OS map of 1901, the road before it captioned ‘Kinnegar’.

This house is one of a semi-detached pair dated 1883. The dwellings first enter valuation records in 1884 replacing a house valued at £3.10s and a neighbouring ruin. They are both initially vacant and leased from William James Campbell, who is likely to have been the developer of the site and also built numbers 47 and 48 Queen’s Parade some years later in c1893. A William James Campbell is listed in the 1907 street directory as a director of Annadale brickworks and resident at Carleton House, Carolan Road but the evidence is not conclusive that this is the same man. The houses are valued at £32 and this is reduced to £30 in 1886, probably as the result of an appeal. (Annual Revisions)

Initially resident in the current house was John Wright, who was named as the occupier in 1890 (Annual Revisions). Agnes Morrison follows in 1901 and her completed census return tells us that she was a 48-year-old widow who ran the premises as a boarding house with her daughter. Her son, also resident, worked as a ’junior clerk’. There were two boarders staying with them at the time, Helen Irwin, from England, who was living on the ‘income from money’ and her 14-year-old daughter. Agnes Morrison employed a servant girl of 21 who also lived in the house. (Annual Revisions, 1901 census)

The next recorded occupier was Mary Lewers in 1908. Mrs Lewers was 60 years old and worked as a saleswoman. She lived with her adult daughter, both women having been born in County Monaghan. (1911 census) The two women were long-term residents in the house, remaining there until at least 1930. (Annual Revisions) The house continues in use as a private dwelling.

References:

Primary Sources

1.PRONI OS/6/3/2/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1901
2.PRONI OS/6/3/2/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1919-26
3.PRONI OS/6/3/2/5 – Fifth Edition OS Map 1939
4.PRONI VAL/12/B/23/7A-K – Annual Revisions (1866-99)
5.PRONI VAL/12/B/23/9A-S – Annual Revisions (1900-1930)
6.PRONI VAL/12/E/129/1 – Annual Revisions Town Plans (c.1864-1899)
7.PRONI VAL/12/E/129/2 – Annual Revisions Town Plans (1898-c.1916)
8.1901 census online
9.1911 census online

Secondary Sources

1.Patton, M, “Bangor, An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1999
2.Wilson, I “Bangor, Historic Photographs of the County Down town” Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, 1992

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A three-storey two-bay Victorian mid-terrace dwelling, built 1883 and erected as a symmetrical pair of dwellings now forming part of the larger terrace. Its original character and detailing survive. It has group value with its pair (HB23/07/012B) and is a good example of the type of larger terrace that formed part of the development of Bangor in the later 19th century after the arrival of the railway.

General comments

Please note this record has been renumbered it was previously recorded as HB23/07/012