'The Inns'

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Formal two storey building of c.1835-6,with projecting gabled end bays, probably originally built as a hotel, but now much altered with modern shop units installed to the ground and first floor. The building is set on the W of the Saintfield Road, next to the junction with School Road.

The front façade faces E. To left and right are projecting two storey gabled bays, with the former forecourt between in filled with a single storey flat roofed extension making the building square in plan instead of its original U-shape. The ground floor is sub-divided into three shop units and a ground floor entrance and stair to the first floor. There is one shop unit to the upper floor.

To the left ground floor front is a shop unit with a timber glazed door and shop window. Directly above the window is a PVC awning, surmounted by a full width painted sign board. To the first floor of the left hand projecting bay, positioned centrally and set with in a recessed semicircular arched panel, is a semicircular arched sash window with a recently added wrought iron balcony. The projecting bay to the right is similar. This shop front is aluminium framed and is glazed to floor level. The centre portion has a shop unit to the left and a door opening to the right. The shop unit and the door are both aluminium framed. Surmounting the flat roof is a recent wrought iron hand rail which matches the ‘balconies’. The first floor is recessed and has two equally spaced timber sash windows. (3 over 6). Each gable has a sign (‘The Inns’) painted to the upper area.

The ground floor of the S façade is obscured by adjoining singhle storey flat roofed unit. To first floor is a sash window (as before) to far left and right. Left of centre is a further modern window.

The N façade ground floor has a modern slot window to the far right and a sash window as before to the far right and left of first floor. Merging to the right of the main elevation is a single storey wall which has two small window openings to the right hand side..

The original building had an enclosed yard to the rear. The N side was enclosed by a tall wall. The W side was enclosed by a part single and part two storey outhouse. The two storey section has now been demolished. The E side may also have been enclosed by a wall. The yard area is now almost entirely covered by various flat roofed single storey extensions to the shops.

The upper portion of the original W façade has gables to left and right and a single centrally placed sash window.

The façades are rendered and painted. The roof is covered in Bangor Blue slate. The central section of the roof has two rendered chimney stacks each with five tall matching pots.

Historical information

The northern portion of the Saintfield Road, from roughly Galwally to Beech Hill was laid out in the 1830s. On the 1834 OS map the outline of the road is marked but there are no buildings along it. The property we now know as ‘The Inns’ was the first to appear along the road and may have been built around c.1835-6, and is probably the 'lately built...clean and well kept' hotel mentioned in the OS Memoirs of 1837. It is shown on the OS map of 1858 with the large outbuildings (probably stables) to the rear also present.

In the 1923 directory the owner of the property is named as a Mr. Francis Bamford, who, from this date, appears to have used the building as a store for dairy produce (he is listed as a ‘milk vendor’). In 1961 Mr. Bamford (?or his son) leased the property to the Northern Bank, who remained there until c.1974 when it became a branch of the Trustee Savings Bank.

By 1980 the building housed a insurance brokers, who were later succeeded by an estate agents.

The ground floor of the building probably adopted its present modern appearance in c.1961, when it became a branch of the Northern Bank.

References- Primary Sources
1 PRONI OS/6/3/9/1 OS map, 1st ed. 1834, Down 9
2 PRONI OS/6/3/9/2 OS map, 1st rev. 1858, Down 9
3 'Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II', ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams
(QUB 1991) p.101
4 PRONI and Linen Hall Library ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory’ Vols.1-21, 1852-1900,
(Belfast, Henderson [1852-65], Belfast News-Letter [1865- ]).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Formal two storey building of c.1835-6,with projecting gabled end bays, probably originally built as a hotel. Although altered on the ground floor the building is a local landmark and is significant as possibly the first building on the Saintfield Road.