15 The Square

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Large, three storey terrace house of possible early 19th century construction, with front façade in variously coloured coarse rubble stone with brick surround to upper floor windows. The property is set on the squint within the terrace on the W side of The Square, in Portaferry town centre. Dimensions- 8m frontage.

The front (E) façade is asymmetrical. Roughly to the centre of the ground floor is an elliptical archway filled with two panelled double panel doors, with a scumble finish to both the doors and frames; the left hand door is false. To the left of the doorway is a double sash window with horns and no astragals. Flat arch over window. (Window and first [false door] is the width of the living room). To the right of the doorway is a semi-circular segmental arch with chamfered quoins, filled with timber sheeted double doors.

To the first floor are three single windows, same as ground floor but reduced in height and with plastered reveal and flat brick arch and surround. Middle window not centred.

The second floor has three windows as first floor, slightly shorter than before. Eaves course. Parapets to gables. Cast iron gutters with extended metal brackets.

The gabled roof is covered with Bangor blue slates which reduce in size towards the ridge. Yellow brick chimneys with coping. Decorative chimney pots, though not all matching. This building abuts a smaller two storey house on the right hand side and the exposed gable is rendered.

Historical information

A building, in possession of a John Rowan, is shown on Patrick O’Hare’s map of 1799, with the site occupied on all other maps thereafter. It is possible that this house may have been built in the 1820s, for a 'new' three storey house (in possession of a William McCleery), with a gateway, cellar and outbuildings (all of which match today's building), is recorded on this site in the valuation returns of c.1835. Interestingly the valuation records also note that McCleery built the house himself and the 'entrance beside the gateway is under the house and is used as a car house', which suggests that the present odd double doorway was originally the door to a room for storing a cart, and that the stair to the house (which was confined to the upper floors) was entered from the store itself. It also accounts for the sheer preculiarity of the double doorway itself.

William McCleery (or a relative of the same name) was still in possession of the house when the 1863 valuation was carried out, but is not recorded as resident in the town in 1870. In the later 1800s the ground floor was integrated with the dwelling house proper, with the result that the 'car house' was converted to become the present hallway and the the double doorway itself fitted into its arch.

Photographic evidence of c.1890-1900 shows the facade of the building much as it appears today.

References- Primary sources
1 Walter Harris, 'The Ancient and Present State of the County of Down' (Dublin 1744), p. 44. [ Harris describes Portaferry as ‘a
market town, but irregularly built, and few other than thatched houses in it’.]
2 Linen Hall Library ‘Pigot & Co.’s Dublin and Hibernian Provincial Directory’ (Manchester 1824)
3 'Taylor's and Skinner's Maps of the roads of Ireland' (Dublin 1777)
4 PRONI D.552/B/3/3/1 Savage/Nugent Papers: ‘A Plan or Map of the Town of Portaferry’ by Patrick O’Hare, 1799 [The
Savage/Nugent Papers contain many documents relating to Portaferry and the surrounding area]
5 'Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II', ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991)
6 PRONI OS/6/3/32/1 OS maps, 1st ed., 1834, Down sheet 32
7 PRONI VAL/1B/37 1st valuation, Ballyphilip, c.1835-38
8 PRONI VAL/1D/3/4 Valuation town plan of Portaferry, c.1838
9 Linen Hall Library ‘Slater’s National Commercial Directory of Ireland’ (Manchester 1846), p.520-23
10 PRONI and Linen Hall Library ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory’ Vols.1-21, 1852-1900, (Belfast, Henderson [1852-65], Belfast News-Letter [1865- ])
11 Linen Hall Library ‘Slater’s Royal National Commercial Directory of Ireland’ (Manchester 1856), p.592-95
12 PRONI OS/8/23/1- OS town plan of Portaferry, 1859
13 PRONI VAL/2B/3/14 Second valuation, 1863
14 PRONI VAL/12E/112/1- Valuation maps of Portaferry, c.1863, with revisions of 1902
15 Linen Hall Library ‘Slater’s Royal National Commercial Directory of Ireland’ (Manchester 1870), pp.341-43
16 PRONI OS/8/23/2 OS town plan of Portaferry, 1874
17 George Henry Bassett, ‘County Down Guide and Directory’ (Dublin 1886)
18 PRONI OS/8/23/3 OS town plan of Portaferry, 1900
19 PRONI Laurence Collection: Photograph of The Square, Portaferry c.1900. [Reprinted in Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society, No.10 (1986), p.24.]
20 PRONI VAL/12E/112/2- Valuation town plan of Portaferry, 1902, with revisions of 1935

Secondary sources
1 G. Philip Bell, C.E.B. Brett, Sir Robert Matthew, 'Ulster Architectural Heritage Survey: Portaferry & Strangford'
(Belfast UAHS 1969)
2 PRONI Portaferry: Sources for Local History (PRONI ?1970s)
3 'Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society No.15' (1991)- Reprint of two photographs of the Market Square, Portaferry and the old Post Office c.1910. [These photographs undoubtedly belong to one of the major local collections but unfortunately no
references are provided alongside these particular reprints.]

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
E. Spatial Organisation
I. Quality and survival of Interior

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Large and very fine, three storey terrace house of probable 1820s construction, with asymetrical front façade in variously coloured coarse rubble stone with brick surround to upper floor windows. The entrance consists of an unusual double doorway, the left hand of which is false.