6-9 Court Square

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Site, at the S end of Court Square, of former two storey terrace consisting of 4 dwellings and a shop. The block was probably constructed in the mid 1800s and contained some ‘Ards’ doorways, sash windows (some with Georgian panes) and a slated hipped roof. The site is now occupied by the Elim Pentecostal church, erected in 1987.

First Survey Report:

'2 storey terrace. Roof hipped and slated. Chimneys rendered and concrete brick. Walls rendered and lined. Bevel quoins and base. 9 First floor double/hung windows. Left/hand 3, Georgian panes. Others, no astragals. Gd floor has small shop front with 2/light shop window, vertical astragals with arch, and recent panelled door and plain fanlight, all framed with 3 fluted pilasters and signboard having frieze and dentiled wood cornice. Then house door - double/hung window - door - window- door - window - door and window. No. 9 window has horizontal astragals, others as above. No. 9 doorway has 5 centre arch head, plain archivolt with keystone on pilasters. Decorated fanlight and decorated panelled door. No. 8 doorway as No. 9 but 'sunrise' fanlight, recent glazed and panelled door.

Condition: Fair. Frontage about 75 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. This extension appears to have consisted, either in part and or in whole, to the block on this site until the 1980s. The site is now occupied by a church, erected in 1987.

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 hipped roof block (containing 4 houses and a shop) of probable mid 19th century origin, demolished c.1986/7 with site now occupied by a church.