Public House (‘Burgundy Ben’s’),

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Large, two storey public house set within a terrace on the E side of the Belfast Road in the centre of Ballygowan.

The front (W) facade has a slightly right of centre main entrance doorway with panelled door and plain fanlight encased with fluted and panelled pilasters set on a tall base. To the immediate right and immediate left of the doorway is a large three light timber (Victorian looking) window with a semicircular arched head to each light. Low wrought iron ‘cheval-de-fris’ in front of windows (and all windows). These large windows have outer pilasters (as before) and the whole windows and door ensemble is topped with a lintel frieze/signboard with decorative outer brackets with dentilled cornice above frieze.

To the far left on the front facade is a broad doorway with panelled double doors encased with pilasters much as before and a panelled lintel frieze above itself topped with a plain tympanum. This doorway was been greatly widened recently. To the immediate right of this doorway is a window with PVC frame, moulded surround, lintel frieze, cornice and blocking course. The window rests on a cill course. To the right of this window is another door with surround, as previous window, stretching to the cill course. The doorway was a window until fairly recently.

To the immediate right of the main entrance doorway/window ensemble is another doorway (leading to an off licence) with panelled door and pilasters as entrance but with decorative capitals. This doorway is topped with a lintel frieze, cornice and tympanum. To the right of this doorway are two windows as that to the far left, both resting on a cill course.

To the first floor are eight windows with moulded surrounds and PVC frames as ground floor far left and far right. All first floor windows rest on a cill course. The front facade is finished in lined render with a dentilled eaves course with end brackets.

The exposed sections of both gables are blank and rendered. The ground floor at the rear is completely covered by a large modern flat roofed extension. To the first floor are two plain sheeted doorways which allow access to a walkway (on the roof of the extension). Eaves course.

The roof is gabled and covered in Bangor blue slates. Rendered parapets. Two tall rendered chimney stacks with corbelling. Another chimney stack (originally sited to the N of centre), has been removed.

Historical information

A terrace is shown on this site on the OS map of 1834, somewhat narrower than the present terrace, which the 1835 valuation returns note as being in the possession of a James Stewart and having a rateable value of £6-12-0. On the revised map of 1858-60 the plan appears much as today with this section of the terrace considerably broader. Thus it is possible that this building is of pre 1858 origin and, like many others within Ballygowan may have been constructed to coincide with the arrival of the railway in the village during the 1850s. The valuation records of 1863 state that the building was at this stage in the hands of a James McWhirk and had a rateable value of £14-5-0.

The property has contained a licenced premises since the early years of the 20th century, owned by the Murray family, however, Basset’s directory of 1886 notes a spirit grocer named Murray, perhaps suggesting that the building housed such an establishment at this date. The section which is now the off licence is said to have housed a branch of the Northern Bank during the mid 1900s.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI OS map 1st ed. 1834, Down 16.
2 PRONI VAL1B/316C, p.56 1st valuation Comber parish 1834.
3 PRONI OS map 1st rev. 1858-60, Down 10.
4 PRONI 2nd valuation Comber parish c.1863.
5 George Henry Basset ‘Co. Down Guide and Directory’ (Dublin 1886), p.282.
6 EHS HB24/16/5 1st survey notes and slide.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Large two storey terraced public house with off licence, possibly dating from the 1850s. The window and door arrangement at the front has been altered somewhat in recent times and PVC windows have been installed but the facade still maintains much of its Victorian appearance. Elsewhere the building has been more radically changed with large flat-roofed extension added to the rear and the interior layout completely reworked.