33 Main Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Varied two storey terrace containing shops and dwellings set within the northern half of Main Street in the village of Kircubbin.

No.33 is at the right hand side (NW) of the terrace (on the corner of Church Avenue) and is slightly shorter than its neighbours.

It is a ‘formal composition’ double fronted structure with a central timber door with plain fanlight, with two sliding sash and case windows, with horizontal astragals, to either side. There are five similar windows, evenly spaced, to the first floor. Modern laminated bookmakers sign above entrance.

NW gable blank apart from large modern [?painted steel] bookmakers shop sign at upper level and small street sign below. Guttering continues across this gable.

The rear has three small sliding sash and case windows to the first floor, with two modern looking windows (of varying size) and a plain timber sheeted door, to the ground floor. To the far right on the ground floor is a lean to extension with a sliding sash and case window. Large satellite dish next to extension. Ground floor window to right appears to have been substantially reduced in size recently.

Entire facade finished in lined render, with rear unpainted.

Roof pitched with asbestos slates to front and Bangor blues to rear, and two brick chimney stacks to NE end, with a concrete block stack shared with No.35. PVC rw goods.

Historical information

A terrace is shown on this site on the OS map of 1834. The owner of Nos.35-37 has deeds dating back to 1784, however, one suspects that this section of the terrace, with its large upper floor windows, may have had its facade altered [?or roof raised] perhaps c.1840-50. Both properties belonged to a member of the locally important Herron family, William Herron, in the middle decades of the nineteenth century and have been in possession of the Maxwell family since 1899. Photographs dating from c.1910 show the shop and the house much the same as today. The same photographs, however, reveal that No.33 had what appears to be a small shop or office front where the two windows to the left of the entrance are now, and two more chimney stacks which have since been removed. This building once served as the local RIC station (though locals claim that No.65 Main Street also fulfilled the same purpose). No.41 used to be a house but has been a hardware shop, and is now a chip shop, and as a consequence its facade has been greatly altered.

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.
8 PRONI D.3302 Heron Family Papers. [These papers are not listed and therefore currently unavailable, but could well repay some future investigation in relation to these properties.]

Secondary sources
1. Joan Maxwell, ‘Notes on the Herron Family’ in Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society, No.17 (1993), pp. 18-19.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Two storey terrace block of possible late 18th century origin, large sections of which have been much altered in fairly recent times.
No.33 is plain, has been altered in fairly recent times and has a modern interior.