60 Queens Parade

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A three-storey two-bay Victorian mid-terrace dwelling built c.1880. 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 clay ridge tiles and leaded hips over projecting bay; cast-iron ogee gutters (uPVC to rear). Rendered chimney-stack with yellow clay pots. Stucco rendered walling with plinth mouldings, string and corbel course. uPVC replacement windows throughout. Principal entrance, replacement timber door.

Principal elevation faces north-east and is asymmetrically arranged. Front door located on the right; smooth render surrounds rising to scroll console brackets, supporting entablature. Two-storey canted bay on the left; square-headed moulded surrounds and continuous cill course to first floor; diminished round-headed arched openings to second floor. First floor window over entrance with moulded surrounds.

Left elevation is abutted by 59 Queens Parade (HB23/07/013A).

The rear elevation is abutted by a two-storey pitched roof return, projecting from the left hand bay. View to rear elevation obscured. Views from distance suggest uPVC windows throughout.

Right elevation is abutted by 61 Queens Parade (HB23/07/021A).

Setting
Garden to the 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
Windows: uPVC
RWG: Cast-iron / uPVC

Historical information

This part of Queen’s Parade was developed during the late 1870s and early 1880s to serve the increasing numbers of welll-to-do middle 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 dating from c1880, and built in a similar style to the adjoining pair to the west (HB23/07/021A-B). The present houses were built by a different developer and slightly later than the adjoining pair, displaying some minor differences in style and execution.

The houses first enter valuation records in 1880, each house described as ‘new’, valued at £30 and initially listed as vacant. They replace a cottage formerly on the site that was valued at £2.10s. The immediate lessor is Joseph Ferguson, the likely developer of the site. A Scotsman from Arbroath, Ferguson was a master mariner who lived in Mountcollyer Avenue, Belfast and eventually died at sea. (Letters of Administration, death of Joseph Ferguson) From 1854 to 1862, as a newly-qualified master, Ferguson captained a ship called the Edwin Fox. The ship initially worked as a troop carrier during the Crimean war and then notoriously carried Chinese labourers to Cuba to work in the sugar plantations. While Ferguson was the captain, the ship also carried convicts to Australia and pale ale to India. (www.nzmaritime.co.nz)

In around 1880 Ferguson appears to have settled, at least temporarily, in Bangor, the home town of his wife, Agnes. The couple had six children, at least four of whom were born in Bangor. Ferguson appears to have built the houses in Queen’s Parade at about the time he had his first child, Hester, perhaps with a view to providing an income for his young family while he was at sea (1901 census, 1911 census). Letters of administration obtained by his widow state that Joseph Ferguson died, ‘as is supposed on 25th December 1895 at Sea’ and by 1901 the valuation records note that Agnes Ferguson has become immediate lessor of the two properties in Queen’s Parade. (Letters of Administration, death of Joseph Ferguson; Annual Revisions)

The current house was reduced in value to £25 in 1886, perhaps as the result of an appeal. The rent charged was £32 plus taxes. The first tenant to be listed was an unknown by the name of Dudley in 1890. By 1901 the tenant was Mary Marshall, but she was not in residence at the time of the census, when the house was vacant. Jane Harris was the occupant by 1908 and at the time of the 1911 census the tenant is Thomas Whiteman, a stone engraver, from County Kilkenny. He lived with his wife and their young daughter and their household included a sister, a domestic servant, and a boarder, Thomas S Hurst who was a fine art dealer. In 1914 the valuation was reduced again to £22, probably to bring it in line with the valuation of the neighbouring house which had been reduced some years before. In 1921, Hester Ferguson, a daughter of the original developer of the house, master mariner Joseph Ferguson, briefly became the occupier before moving in with her sister who was the tenant of the adjoining house. By 1924 the occupier was Charles J Still and he remained in the house until at least 1930. The house continues to be a domestic residence and is currently undergoing renovation work.

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/B/17/10A-G – Annual Revisions (1867-1930)
7.PRONI VAL/12/E/129/1 – Annual Revisions Town Plans (c.1864-1899)
8.PRONI VAL/12/E/129/2 – Annual Revisions Town Plans (1898-c.1916)
9.PRONI Letters of Administration, Joseph Ferguson, died 25th December 1895
10.1901 census online
11.1911 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
3.www.nzmaritime.co.nz – New Zealand Maritime Record

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A three-storey two-bay Victorian mid-terrace dwelling built c.1880 as part of a pair with adjoining HB23/07/013A now forming part of the larger terrace located on an elevated site on the Bangor promenade. Its original character and robust detailing survive. Although the installation of uPVC windows and a modern front door have compromised its interest, it has group value with its pair (HB23/07/013A) 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 HB23/07/013