2-3 Court Square

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Site, near the N end of Court Square, of former two storey terraced block which once contained a house and pub. This block was probably constructed in the mid to late 1800s, but its window and door arrangement appears to have altered on several occasions during the 20th century, and before it was demolished the block had a bland, modern appearance. The building was demolished in 1994 and a new pub is now on the site.

First Survey Record:
2 storey block of house and pub. Roof slated. Chimneys rendered. Wall rendered, lined and painted. No 3 has 2 first floor and 1 Gd floor double/hung windows, horizontal astragals. Doorway below 2nd window framed with pilasters, frieze, lintol and cornice moulding. Door sheeted. No2 'The Bowling Green Bar' has 2 small leaded First floor windows and largedouble/hung window, no astragals. Gd floor has doorway as No 2, then recent pub window and doorway as before but door panelled.

Condition fair to poor. Frontage about 50 feet.

Historical information

Court Square, to the north of the 13th century priory, lies within the area of the medieval settlement of Newtown. In Colville’s town plan of 1720 it is marked ‘Bowling Green’, with a row of dwellings on the west side of the green itself. Buildings are shown on the same site on the first OS map of 1834, by which time the green appears to have been home to a (presumably occasional) cattle market. By 1858 the row had been extended southwards to meet the newly cut Court Street.

The building on the site until recently may have been constructed in the later 1800s however and may have equated to the houses noted in the Square in the valuation records of 1863. Latterly the block also housed ‘The Bowling Green Bar’, but was demolished in 1994 to make may for a new establishment.

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 is undoubtedly belongs to the Colville estate maps contained within to the Londonderry Papers [PRONI D.654/M1A].
2 PRONI D.654 Londonderry Papers
3 PRONI OS Maps 1st ed. 1834, Co. Down 6.
4 PRONI VAL 1B/34 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.78-80.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Site of former two storey block (latterly containing a house and pub), of possible mid 19th century origin, demolished c.1994 with new building now on site.