2 Lorelei

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A three-storey two-bay Victorian mid-terrace house, built c.1898 to designs by Young and Mackenzie on the outskirts of Bangor town centre. Rectangular on plan with full-height modern extension to rear (1990s).

Pitched natural slate roof; conical roof and finial over bay. Rectangular painted masonry chimneystack with moulded plinth. Walling is painted smooth render/stucco with moulded string-course between floors and continuous sills; dentilled eaves to second floor. Windows are uPVC throughout. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on projecting eaves, plastic rainwater goods to rear.

The principal elevation faces north-east and comprises three-storey bow window to left; to right is entrance with single opening to upper floors. Door is timber-panelled with plain fanlight in moulded recess; Doric pilasters surmounted by bead moulded arch with keyblock; moulded swirl motif to spandrels.

The south-east elevation is abutted by adjoining building (HB23/14/003A).

The south-west (rear) elevation is completely abutted by extension (1990s); modern and of no interest.

The north-west elevation is abutted by adjoining building (HB23/14/003C).

Setting

Located in an elevated position on the east side of Princetown Road, overlooking Bangor Bay. Accessed from a lane between 82 and 88 Princetown Road. Tarmacadam car-park to front and rear; garages to front at lower level. Modern steel railing extends along front.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Render
Windows: Replacement uPVC
RWG: Cast-iron; uPVC to rear

Historical information

After the arrival of the railway from Holywood in 1865, Bangor began a phase of rapid growth and land that had been open fields along the coast to the west of the town gradually began to fill with terraces and villas catering for the well-to-do middle-classes, both residents and those attracted to Bangor during the summer season. In the latter decades of the nineteenth century the character of Bangor changed from a declining manufacturing town to a thriving and fashionable resort, the ‘Northern Brighton’. (Patton, p.xii)

The terrace started life as a pair of semi-detached houses, built c.1880 (these two houses later became numbers 3 and 4 Lorelei Terrace) overlooking Bangor Bay.

The pair were sold to Samuel Crosbie in 1897 and it was he who subsequently developed the site further by adding four more houses, two on either side of the original pair. In August 1898, the Irish Builder announced that “Two blocks of houses will shortly be commenced at Lourlie [sic]...for Mr Samuel Crosbie, from plans by Messrs Young and Mackenzie, architects, Belfast”. (Irish Builder)

The first occupier to be noted in the current house was Ernst A Boas in 1900. The valuation of the house is £36 (Annual Revisions). The 1901 census return of Ernest Boas shows him to be of the ‘Jewish Farsi’ faith, a linen manufacturer who lives with his Unitarian wife and three young children. A cook and a nursemaid are also resident. (1901 census) Ernst Boas was a son of Herman Boas (1827-1917, founding member of the Jewish congregation in Belfast in 1861 and formerly resident at number three Lorelei Terrace. Herman Boas had emigrated to Nottingham from Lubeck in 1854 and settled in Belfast in 1861 trading as Sol Boas and Company, fancy box and linen ornament manufacturers. His wife Caroline Spiers was a niece of the lexicographer Alexander Spiers and aunt to Herman Heyermans, the Netherlands playwright and novelist. Their eldest son, Frederick Samuel Boas (1862-1955) became an extremely distinguished Shakespearean scholar, publishing numerous works in the field of Tudor and Stuart drama and poetry. He was Professor of English Literature at Queen’s College, Belfast from 1901 to 1905. Herman’s son Ernst, heir to the family firm, rented the current house, number two, shortly after it was first built. (Hyman, p.206, Annual Revisions)

By 1911 the character of the terrace had begun to change from large family residences to boarding houses catering for commuters and tourists. In the 1911 census Sarah Stronge is shown as occupying both this house and its neighbour, number three, and operating them both as boarding houses. She has two servants, a cook and a housemaid from County Monaghan and there is a visitor staying, perhaps a boarder. The next occupiers to be noted were Robert G Martin (1922), Rev John N Spence (1924) and Rev Benjamin Brooke Moreton (1927). The house served as a manse for Rev John N Spence and Rev Brooke Moreton who were ministers in the Hamilton Road Methodist Church (NIEA file).

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.Irish Builder, Vol 40, 15 August, 1898, p.125
9.Lawrence Collection - 9538

Secondary Sources

1.Hyman, Louis “The Jews of Ireland from Earliest Times to the Year 1910” Shannon: Irish University Press, 1972
2.McSkimin, S; M’Crum, E J “The history and antiquities of the county of the town of Carrickfergus from the earliest records till 1839” 1909
3.NIEA file – HB23/14/003B
4.Patton, M, “Bangor, An Historical Gazetteer” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1999

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A three-storey two-bay Victorian stucco mid-terrace house, built c.1898 on the outskirts of Bangor town centre. This terrace would once have formed part of an important group of Victorian terraces overlooking Bangor Bay, built at the time of Bangor’s expansion as a seaside resort. The original character has been compromised with the conversion to modern apartments and the plan form has been lost; the terrace is now a façade retention. Some good architectural detailing survives in the main elevation; however, the original windows have been lost and the setting has been compromised by the addition of garages and a tarmacadam car-park to the front. The rear elevation is dominated by a full-height modern extension. Taken as a whole, the terrace is of a relatively late date and common type and no longer meets the statutory and policy tests as a building of special architectural or historic interest.