'First and Last'

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two storey gabled public house on the corner of Main Street and Strand Avenue, Millisle. This pub is at the end of a terrace (to the N) but is built at a slightly different angle than its immediate neighbours.

Front W facade has central panelled door encased with pilasters, slightly raised lintel frieze and cornice hood. To the left is a modern timber window with metal bars placed in front. To the right is another, slightly broader modern window, also with bars. To the first floor are three evenly spaced sash windows. Internally illuminated projecting PVC pub sign to far right on first floor, with more traditional-looking (but laminated) sign to the far left.

The S gable is blank except for a very small (?extractor fan) opening at attic level.

Attached to the rear is a long untidy looking mainly flat roofed single storey extension, which appears to have been added to on a number of occasions. The extension follows the line of Strand Avenue.

The front facade of the pub is finished in lined render with chamfered quoins.

The gable is finished in plain render and the S facade of the large extension finished in plain and rough cast render.

The roof of the main building is pitched and covered in Bangor blue slates, with stone parapets and a rendered chimney stack to the S gable. The stack on the N gable has been partly dismantled and has been blocked.

Historical information

A decorative mirror behind the bar asserts that this pub has been in existence since 1790, but whilst a public house may have been sited here since that date, this particular building could be somewhat younger. A building is shown on this site on the OS Map of 1833/4, but its positioning does not appear to match that of the present building exactly in that the orientation of the front facade faces south west rather than directly west. The orientation of the front elevation on the revised map of 1858-60 appears to match that of today, thus suggesting that the present structure may date from some time between 1833/4 and c.1858. In recent times the interior of this building has been extensively altered and modernised.

The building to the immediate N [No.37] (which this pub has now been extended into) was built some time between 1906 and c.1930.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL 1B/32 Valuation records for the townland of Ballymacruise (Parish of Donaghadee) 1830s.
2 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps 1st Edition 1833/4, Down 7.
3 Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), p. 50.
4 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps 1st Revision 1858-60, Down 7.
5 PRONI ‘Griffith’s’ valuation for the townland of Ballymacruise (Parish of Donaghadee) 1863.
6 PRONI D.1167 Dunleath Papers. [The Mulhollands came into possession of much land in Millisle area in the 1840s, conceivably there may be leases relating to the above property within this collection.]
7 Photographs of Main Street Millisle in the early twentieth century reprinted in Grace Seymour 'Echoes of Millisle and district' (Rathfriland ?c.1983), pp.26-30 etc.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Largely simple and still somewhat traditional-looking public house of (possibly) c.1840s. The rear is dominated by a large rambling extension and the interior has been completely altered and modernised.