62 Queens Parade

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A three-storey two-bay Victorian end-terrace dwelling built c.1878. 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; replacement slate to rear pitch; cast-iron ogee gutters. Rendered chimney-stack with yellow clay pots. Stucco rendered walling with plinth mouldings, string and corbel course. 1/1 double-glazed, sliding sash with horns. Principal entrance, timber door with four bolection moulded panels with replacement ironmongery; rectangular fixed light over.

Principal elevation faces north-east and is asymmetrically arranged. Front door located on the left; smooth render surrounds rising to scroll console brackets, supporting entablature. Two-storey canted bay on the right surmounted by cast-iron parapet; square-headed moulded surrounds and continuous cill course to first floor; diminished flat-headed openings to second floor. First floor window over entrance with moulded surround. Date plaque altered from “1888” to read “1883” although neither date is accurate.

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

The rear elevation is abutted by a two-storey pitched roof return shared with the adjoining owner; artificial slate with modern roof light to left hand side. Replacement uPVC ogee style guttering; cast-iron down pipes and SVP. Rear chimney located centrally on rear faced removed above eaves level.

Right gable elevation is symmetrically arranged with windows openings located on the first and second floor; right hand windows replaced with uPVC

Setting
Garden to the front with terracotta path running parallel to lawn shared with adjoining owner; accessed by communal steps with individual gates. Rubble masonry boundary wall surmounted by stone coping and rendered piers. Historic urns located either side of path. 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 yard.

Roofing: Natural slate
Walling: Stucco render
Windows: Timber/uPVC
RWG: uPVC/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 well-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 third edition OS map of 1901 is the first to show the terrace, the road still captioned ‘Kinnegar’ at this stage. Historic large-scale maps, including the valuation town plan covering the period 1898 to 1916 caption the current houses ‘Emmaville’, a name which they still bear today.
This house is one of a semi-detached pair dating from roughly the same time, c1878 as ‘Bowman Terrace’ (HB23/07/011C-J) to the east. Although the houses today bear a small plaque stating that they were built in 1883, this date of construction is not supported by the primary source evidence, which suggests that the houses were built somewhat earlier. The current owner holds a copy of amended elevations dated 3rd June 1878 showing the houses roughly as built, but with additional ornamentation to the roofline and door surround. (Owner information) Interestingly, the drawings are signed ‘approved’ by Somerset Ward, who was a son of Viscount Bangor and agent to the Bangor estates. (Dodd, p.537) It would appear that Viscount Bangor, the original landowner in the Princetown area, was attempting to exercise a degree of control over the quality of development. A road to the rear of Queen’s Parade is named ‘Somerset Avenue’, and the two-storey cottages built there show some stylistic echoes of the houses in Queen’s Parade. The current owner states that these cottages were used as summer residences by the tenants of Queen’s Parade, who retired to Somerset Avenue and allowed their own houses to be let out to summer visitors. (Owner information)

The pair first enters valuation records in 1878 as two newly-built vacant dwellings leased from John Clements and valued at £30. The valuer notes elsewhere in the records for Bangor that houses valued at £30 and over were eligible for a first class season railway ticket to Belfast, provided by the railway company. (Annual Revisions) This was a scheme known as ‘Building Tickets’ or ‘House Free’ tickets, in which the railway company and the property business assisted each other in stimulating the growth of Bangor as a resort and commuter town. (Patton, p.xii). A marginal sketch shows that the new houses are three storey with a two storey paired return and bays to the front facade. A decorator’s signature on the wall of an upper floor of number 61 indicates that the upper rooms in this house were not finished internally until 1881. Copies of the Belfast Newsletter dating from 1882 which were recovered from behind window architraves on the ground floor are possible indicators that this room too was not completed internally for some years after the house was first built. The valuation of the houses is reduced to £25 in 1886 and £22 in 1906, probably as the result of an appeal. It is noted that the rent is £30 per annum plus taxes.

John Clements, the developer, may have been a partner in Clements & Acheson, plumbers, gas fitters, brass founders and lead merchants who had premises in Victoria Street, Belfast (Belfast and Ulster Street Directory). John Clements of Victoria Street is known to have had a connection with Kinnegar, being named as an executor in the will of William Campbell of Kinnegar, but the evidence is not conclusive that he was the developer of this site (Will of William Campbell).

The first occupant noted in number 62 is William F Boyce in1880. The house experienced some periods of vacancy but by 1901 the tenant was John M Dailey, a master tailor from County Monaghan who lived with his wife and three children. He is likely to have been a partner in Clarke & Dailey, tailors and clothiers, with premises in Chichester Street, Belfast (Belfast and Ulster Street Directory). In 1908 the tenant was Samuel Y Coulter and at the time of the census in 1911, Isabel Marshall was in residence, with her sister, Jane. Both the sisters lived on the ‘interest on money &c’ and, unusually for those of a Presbyterian background in that era, were able to speak Irish as well as English. Agnes Hearst is recorded as the tenant from 1914 until the end of Annual Revisions in 1930. The house is currently let out to holidaymakers and other temporary residents.

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 Will of William Campbell, died 10th October 1874
10.Belfast and Ulster Street Directory, 1901
11.Belfast and Ulster Street Directory, 1877
12.1901 census online
13.1911 census online

Secondary Sources

1.Owner information
2.Dodd, Charles R “The Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage of Great Britain and Ireland” London: Whitaker & Co, 1846
3.Patton, M, “Bangor, An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1999
4.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 end-terrace dwelling built c.1878 as part of a pair with adjoining HB23/07/021A now forming part of a larger terrace located on an elevated site on the Bangor promenade. Its original character and robust detailing survive. It has group value with its pair (HB23/07/021A) 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