6 The Strand

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Plain, somewhat modernised, two storey terrace house of perhaps c.1840. The property is set in the terrace fronting The Strand, to the SW of Portaferry town centre.

The front façade is symmetrical and faces roughly SW. To the centre of the ground floor is a timber panel door with plain fanlight. To either side of this is a single sash window. To the first floor there are three two pane PVC windows. The front façade is finished in plain render and painted. Exposed section of east gable (which is blank) finished in plain render.

To the rear there are modern window (and door) openings to ground and first floor. The rear façade now merges with a very large flat roofed dormer, which appears to take up all of the rear of the roof area. The rear is finished in roughcast and partly painted.

The roof is pitched to front and covered with Bangor blue slates. Two Velux windows to front. Yellow brick chimney stack (to SE) with bracketed corbelling and uniform pots. Eaves course, cast iron gutters and down spouts.

Historical information

Though the whole of what is now The Strand had been developed prior to 1799, the valuation maps of of c.1835-38 and 1861 reveal that much of the south east end of the terrace was rebuilt between these dates. This property appears to be no exception, with what appears to be a larger two storey dwelling shown on the 1830s map, which the accompanying valuation returns state was very old and in poor repair. A picture of The Strand dating from c.1910 shows this house (before more recent modernisation) with a distinctly late Georgian appearance, suggesting that it may have been built c.1840.

In 1861 the property was occupied by a James Moore.

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 'Taylor's and Skinner's Maps of the roads of Ireland' (Dublin 1777)
3 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]
4 Linen Hall Library ‘Pigot & Co.’s Dublin and Hibernian Provincial Directory’ (Manchester 1824)
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 Second ('Griffith's') valuation, 1861 [In print.]
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 UFTM WAG 609, 611, 612 W.A. Green Collection, photographs of Portaferry Quay, harbour, Shore Road etc.
20 PRONI VAL/12E/112/2- Valuation maps 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 Dick Oram, "The Buildings of Portaferry" in 'Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society No.16' (1992), p. 24
3 Dick Oram, ‘A short history of the Portaferry Hotel’ in Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society, No. 17 (1993), pp. 20-24.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Plain two storey terrace house of perhaps c.1840, which has lost a lot of its architectural character.