54 Frances Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two storey gabled block set in the terrace on the N side of Frances Street (next to the First Presbyterian Church), consisting of three houses.

To the left at the front is a plain ‘Ards’ doorway with plain semicircular fanlight and panelled door. To the left of this is a single window and to the first floor are two single sash windows. All windows have modern frames. The front facade is finished in lined cement render and unpainted.

To the rear is a large two storey return with various sized window openings all with modern frames. The rear is finished in plain cement render.

The roof has Bangor blue slates, with asbestos free to the return. PVC rw goods. Single red brick chimney stack.

Historical information

Frances Street was laid out in c.1817 as part of a new broad thoroughfare to link the new coach road from Belfast to the Donaghadee Road. It appears to have replaced a much narrower Back Lane, which is shown on Colville’s 1720 plan of the town. The OS Map of 1834 shows us that by this stage the western side of the street had been developed, but the eastern end (then known as ‘Little Frances Street’) was largely bare. This particular site, however, does not appear to have been built upon by that date, however, three dwellings had appeared two years later (1836) at the time of the first valuation survey, when the present No.50 was in possession of a William Crawford (and rated a £5. 8. 0.), with its two neighbours under rateable value.

The OS Memoirs (c.1834) make reference to the erection of new houses by the Marquis of Londonderry at this time for which he was ‘granting leases for 60 years or 3 lives at a rate of 1s per foot, upon which they can get the house erected at the rate of 1s per foot’.
No.50 appears to have been renovated c.1880-1900 at which time the surrounds to the front windows may have been added, as well as changes internally, such as the fire place in the living room. Nos.52 and 54 were substantially altered in the early 1990s, at which point the ground floor window of No.52 was enlarged.

References- Primary sources
1 ‘The town and tenements of Newtown in the County of Down...1720’ reprinted in Trevor McCavery Newtown: a history of Newtownards (Dundonald 1994) p.79. Though the author of this book gives no reference as to this map, the original undoubtedly belongs to the Colville estate maps contained within the Londonderry Papers [PRONI D.654/M1A].
2 PRONI D.654/M36-38B Londonderry Papers- Maps of tenements in Frances Street 1828.
3 PRONI OS Maps 1st ed. 1834, Co. Down 6.
4 PRONI VAL 1B/34 p.95 1st valuation Newtownards parish, Newtownards, c.1836 (see also associated town plan).
5 PRONI OS Maps 1st rev. 1858-60, Co. Down 6.
6 Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), pp.105-106.
7 PRONI 2nd (‘Griffith’s’) valuation, Newtownards parish, Newtownards 1863. [The town plan to accompany the 2nd valuation does not appear to be held at PRONI thus making it difficult to match the information contained within the written record with actual buildings.]

Secondary sources
1 Trevor McCavery 'Newtown: a history of Newtownards' (Dundonald 1994), pp.105-7.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

One of a two storey terrace of three houses, probably built c.1835. No 54 has been substantially altered in recent times.