56-58 Mountstewart Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Picturesque, rubble-built, single storey pair of estate workers' houses of c.1860s now converted to a single property and with a large modern flat roofed extension to the rear. The house is one of a small collection of similar dwellings set on the north side of the Mountstewart Road close to the Mount Stewart demesne, roughly 3 miles north west of Greyabbey.

The main gabled has an overhang and two (symmetrically arranged) rendered chimney stacks to main house. All the roofs are slated. Mixture of cast iron and PVC rw goods.

The front (S) elevation is symmetrical and has central gabled porch with sandstone quoins. On the E side of porch is timber sheeted door, with a former doorway to the W now blocked. Front gable side of porch has three light PVC casement window, with simulated diamond leaded lights, and trefoil in tympanum. To left of porch are two similar windows with two more to right.

Both E and W gables of main house have a large four light casement window at attic level, similar in style to before.

To the rear is a large, central, two level flat roofed extension with PVC windows similar to before, and a large gabled PVC conservatory attached to the W side. Two windows, much as before, to either side of extension on main house.

Rear of main house and extension rendered.

Historical information

According to the owner of near by No[s].48-50, this house and its neighbours were constructed c.1860s by the Mount Stewart Estate, undoubtedly as estate workers' dwellings. This particular pair are believed to have been amalgamated to form one single property in the late 1960s, with the large rear extension added in the process.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI OS/6/3/11/2 OS maps, Down 11, 1860
2 PRONI VAL/12B/23/16a-f Annual valuation revision books, Greyabbey, 1866-1930
3 PRONI OS/6/3/11/3 OS maps, Down 11, 1901

Secondary sources
1 Anne Casement, 'Mount Stewart Landscape Study' (The National Trust Northern Ireland Region, 1995)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Picturesque, rubble-built, one and a half storey house of c.1860s-70s, originally two properties, which, like its neighbours at Nos.52 and 54, has been debased somewhat by the construction of a large and inappropriate extension at the rear and also by the inclusion of PVC windows and a drastic re-ordering of the interior layout.