113-117 Frances Street, Newtownards, Co Down, BT23 3DX

This site on the south side of Frances Street, east of Newtownards town centre, formerly contained three two-storey terrace houses. The buildings have been demolished and replaced by a modern petrol station.

The houses, which appear to date from the early nineteenth century (most likely between circa 1811 and 1834), were constructed as a single block. According to a contemporary survey record, they featured slated roofs, rendered walls lined and painted, and rendered chimneys. The first floor comprised eight double-hung windows without astragals arranged across the three properties.

The ground floor contained three doorways spaced between windows. The central doorway—known as the "Ards" doorway—was distinguished by blocked pilasters, a plain semicircular archivolt with keystone, a decorated fanlight, and a flush door. The left and right end doorways featured blocked pilasters, a stilted lintel surround with keystone, and plain fanlights; the left door was flush-panelled whilst the right door was panelled. Between the doorways stood a wide two-pane square window with pilasters, a frieze lintel, and top moulding, and two further double-hung windows of the standard type. A sheeted door was positioned at one end.

Frances Street was laid out circa 1817 as part of a new broad thoroughfare linking the new coach road from Belfast to the Donaghadee Road. It appears to have replaced the much narrower Back Lane shown on Colville's 1720 plan of the town. By the Ordnance Survey map of 1834, the western side of Frances Street had been developed; the eastern side (then called "Little Frances Street") remained largely undeveloped on the south, though this particular site had already been built upon. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of circa 1834 note that the Marquis of Londonderry was erecting new houses at this period, granting leases for 60 years or three lives at a rate of one shilling per foot, upon which houses could be erected at the same rate per foot. Valuation records of circa 1836 describe the block as consisting of three houses exempt from rates (below rateable value).