Former warehouse (now office), Castle Street, Portaferry, Co Down, BT22 1NZ

Former Warehouse (now Office), Castle Street, Portaferry

This well-proportioned and detailed two-storey gabled office building was originally a small warehouse, probably dating from between 1810 and 1820. Constructed in random rubble, it stands to the front of Portaferry Castle with its rear facing Castle Lane. The building was sympathetically renovated in the 1990s for use as an office and visitor centre for the Northern Ireland Tourist Board.

The west-facing front elevation at ground floor contains four openings. At the far right is a large coach doorway with an elliptical arch head, now filled with modern toughened glass and a glass door. To its immediate left stands a tall sash window with six panes over six panes. Left of this is a timber-sheeted door with a plain fanlight. At the far left, a flight of steps descends past a sliding sash window, its lower half now obscured by the steps but the upper sash retaining horizontal and vertical astragals. All openings on this façade are dressed with red brick. A small traditional-style projecting sign sits above the coach arch to the upper right, and a decorative cast iron post stands at the far right wall, originally part of a gate. The first floor has four nearly equally spaced sash windows, shorter than those below but also six over six. The north gable is largely blank but features two square ventilation openings with grills at the eaves and a large hexagonal Northern Ireland Tourist Board sign below. The east elevation carries three small fixed light windows halfway up on the right side and two long projecting vertical banners bearing the Northern Ireland Tourist Board name. The south gable is finished in lined render with two ground floor windows matching those on the front elevation and two first floor windows similar to these but with semi-circular arch heads. The gabled roof is covered with Bangor blue slates and features stone skews with decorative finials. A central rendered chimney stack with simple corbelling and two decorative pots rises from the ridge.

A building is recorded on this site on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834 and the valuation plan of circa 1835–38. Valuation returns from around 1835 describe the property as a "shed and loft" standing within Thomas Gelston's "shop yard" and note that it was graded "A", indicating it was relatively recently constructed at that time and originally served as a small shed or warehouse. By 1861, the building housed a saw mill belonging to Conyngham Miller, who resided in the large house to the west now known as Barholm. During the 1960s and 1970s, Queen's University possessed the building and used it as part of their Marine Biology Station. In the 1990s, it was converted to an office and visitor centre for the Northern Ireland Tourist Board.