1-3 Main Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Long two storey block containing a public house / restaurant and a small antiques shop, much altered in recent years with windows enlarged and mock timber framing rendering applied. The block is set on the SE side of Main street, Greyabbey.

The gabled roof of the main block is covered with man-made tiles, with three Velux windows to the centre- SW side of the pub. The large return to the rear has a gabled roof with Bangor blue slates. There are two rendered chimney stacks to the SW end of the pub. PVC rw goods.

The front (NW) elevation of the public house takes up most of the terrace and has a stepped roof, with the section of the pub to the right (SW) taller than the rest of the pub and the shop to the left.

This elevation has been much altered on several occasions in recent times and windows appear to have been blocked, with others enlarged. It now has a mock ‘timber’ frame facade with a series of multi pane windows of various sizes, with patterned glass to many panes. There are three doors to the ground floor, two of which have gabled canopies on brackets over. The door to the left is double. There are two internally illuminated PVC pub signs at either end of the front facade, with two more traditional looking signs between.

The SW gable has the same mock timber frame render and has several metal ‘Guinness’ sign boards and lettering spelling out the pub’s name, the ‘Guinness’ corporate logo etc. The has been greatly extended and now has large flat roofed restaurant sections and a small conservatory, as well as along two storey gabled return

The front elevation of the small antique shop to the left of the pub has a shop front with a multi pane bowed window with an adjoining timber and glazed door to the right. There is a timber sign board above the shop front and a small double sash window to the left on the first floor. The shop is finished in rough cast render. There is no rear elevation to the shop (i.e. the rear is taken up with the gabled return belonging to the pub).

Historical information

A terrace with a large return is shown on this site on the OS Map of 1834. Conceivably this building may well correspond to that on the map, but the block as a whole has undergone so many changes in recent times that if it was standing in 1834, it bears little resemblance to its former self.

Photographic evidence suggests that this building may have housed a pub since the 1920s, at least. The car park and entrance to the Rosemount estate, to the immediate SW of this building, was once the site of the road to Newtownards up until c.1820s.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI OS/6/3/11/1 OS maps, Down 11, 1834
2 'Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II', ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), pp.67-72 [1834]
3 PRONI VAL/1B/33 1st valuation, Greyabbey, c.1834-38
4 PRONI VAL/1D/3/17 Valuation plan, Greyabbey, c.1838
5 PRONI VAL/2B/3/4 Second valuation, Greyabbey, c.1859
6 PRONI VAL/2D/3/10 Second valuation plan, Greyabbey, 1859
7 PRONI VAL/2B/3/4 Second valuation, Greyabbey, c.1859
8 PRONI VAL/2D/3/ Second valuation plan, Greyabbey, 1859
9 PRONI OS/6/3/11/2 OS maps, Down 11, 1860
10 PRONI VAL/12B/23/16a-f Annual valuation revision books, Greyabbey, 1866-1930
11 PRONI VAL/12E/99/1 Valuation plan, Greyabbey, 1906-35
12 UFTM W.A. Green Collection WAG 3038 Photograph of Main Street Greyabbey looking south west

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Long two storey terrace block containing a public house / restaurant and a small antiques shop, much altered in recent years with windows enlarged and mock timber framing rendering applied.