12 Frances Street & 2-6 North Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Site, near the corner of Frances Street and North Street of former two storey public house, with return extension to North Street. This building (the Frances Street section) was constructed in 1778, but it appears to have undergone extensive alteration and when surveyed in October 1972 had been given an early 20th century, slightly Art Deco, makeover, with a distinctive stepped parapet to front. The window openings also appear to have been altered also. To the front were two ‘Ards’ doorways. The site is now occupied by a modern three storey bathroom fittings showroom.

First Survey Record:
2 storey pub on corner. Roof slated. Right/hand gable end on Frances Street front and 2 storey extension in North Street. Chimneys rendered. Walls roughcastwith painted stone quoins and base. First floor band course and broken parapet. Front has 4 First floor double/hung windows, horizontal atragals plain surround with flat pediment shape lintol. Inscribed panel below end window. Gd floor has recent sash in window shape as above - 2 Ards doorways, plain pilasters, plain 5 centre archivolt with keystone, 'rising sun' fanlight above panelled door - then wide pub window with surround simiar to others.

Condition fair. Main front about 32 feet. Vertical sign and flag pole on upper front.

Historical information

During the later 1760s and 1770s Alexander Stewart, who had become landlord of Newtownards in 1744, embarked upon an extensive improvements to the town. The centrepiece of these improvements was the construction of the new market house. Around this a new more regular street pattern was developed, especially to the north side, with Back Street (which later became Frances Street) being North Street and sixty new houses added between c.1769 and 1777 ‘mostly built of stone or slated’. The former pub on this site appears to have began life as one of these new houses, but was obviously substantially altered on at least one occasion (c.1930) and also presumably extended into the terrace in North Street. The building appears to have been demolished c.1990.
The former inscription to the front of the building read ‘Bult by Hans Lowery 1777’.

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/M34/1-26 Londonderry Papers, maps of Newtownards Corporation, 1811-26. [The Londonderry Papers contain many documents (including maps and leases) dealing with the development of the town of Newtownards from the 1700s onwards.]. See also D.654/M36/37-38B Maps of tenements in Frances Street 1828.
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), p.88.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Site of former two storey public house originally built in 1777, but subsequently substantially altered during the early to mid 20th century. The building was demolished c.1990 and the site now occupied by three storey commercial premises.