25-27 Main Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two storey gabled house and shop, with large extensions to the rear, set on Main Street but with a street intersecting to either side.

Front NE elevation has almost central recessed timber panelled door with wide jambs and an elliptical arch radial fanlight. Moulded surround to recess with panelled pilasters, elliptical arch and decorative keystone. Two sliding sash and case windows, with horizontal and vertical astragals and moulded surround, with panelled pilasters and cornice hood on decorative brackets, to left of doorway. Door and doorway belong to No.27. Front facade of main building finished in lined render with chamfered quoins.

To right of doorway is large timber shop front (No.25) with two large fixed light windows on either side of a glazed door with plain fanlight and two pane sidelight (to right). Door and windows each encased with plain pilasters and brackets, which support signboard with cornice hood.

First floor (which all belongs to No.27) has five evenly spaced windows, as ground floor No.27 but with simpler moulded surrounds and cill course on brackets. Centre (third) window is tripartite.

SE gable of main building is blank , but merges with a full height flat roofed extension which in turn merges with a high rendered wall, which continues along street until it joins with a large modern warehouse, all of which belongs to No.27. Gable of main building finished in lined render with chamfered quoins.

NW gable blank and merges with a large flush, two storey gabled return, which in turn is attached to a large modern warehouse further along the street. The return has four sliding sash and case windows to the first floor, two to the left on the ground floor, with a large modern window and modern door, with plain fanlight and sidelights, to right. Gable of main building finished in lined render with chamfered quoins, with lined render to return. Flat roofed extension finished in rough cast and pebbledash

Roof of main house and return pitched with Bangor blue slates. Four recently reconstructed red brick chimney stacks, with original pots, to main building and one to return (with modern pots). Eaves course to front. Cast iron gutters and down spouts.

Historical information

A building is shown on this site on the OS map of 1834. Conceivably this house could be early nineteenth century, but the decoration to the doors and windows suggests a date of c.1850-60, though the asymmetry of the arrangement may imply a remodelling of the facade of an earlier building at this time. Up until the mid twentieth century, there was a terrace of two smaller two storey houses with a coach arch beyond, attached to the SE gable of this house. These former properties are indicated on the 1834 and 1860 OS maps, but have since been demolished to allow entrance to a modern estate behind Main Street. The large return at NW side of Nos.25-27 was present in the early 1900s, but appears to have been extended subsequently.

References- Primary sources
1 Pigot & Co.s “City of Dublin and Hibernian Provincial Directory” (Manchester 1824), pp. 417-18. [Description of the town of Kircubbin etc. in c.1824. See also Slater’s “Directory” for 1846, 1856 and 1870, original copies of which are currently held at the Linenhall Library, Belfast.]
2 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st Edition, 1834, Co. Down 18.
3 Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), p. 84-5. [c.1834]
4 PRONI VAL 1B/311A & B 1st valuation, Inishargy, c.1835.
5 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st revision, 1860, Co. Down 18.
6 PRONI 2nd valuation, Inishargy, c.1863.
7 UFTM WAG 1835, 1837 W.A. Green Collection- Photographs of Main Street, Kircubbin, c.1910.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Large two storey house and shop of probable mid nineteenth century origin (?c.1850s). The front façade is largely intact with decorative surrounds to doors and windows. To the rear are large extensions which are undoubtedly later. The interior of the shop is largely plain and has a modern acoustic tiled ceiling. The house contains some simple 19th century detailing, mainly to the first floor.