1 Lorelei, Bangor, Co Down, BT20 3TF

A three-storey two-bay Victorian stucco end-terrace house, built around 1898 to designs by Young and Mackenzie on the outskirts of Bangor town centre. The building stands in an elevated position on the east side of Princetown Road, overlooking Bangor Bay.

The terrace occupies the site of an earlier pair of semi-detached houses built around 1880 (which became numbers 3 and 4 Lorelei Terrace). Samuel Crosbie purchased these houses in 1897 and subsequently developed the site by adding four additional houses, two on either side of the original pair. The Irish Builder announced in August 1898 that "Two blocks of houses will shortly be commenced at Lourlie...for Mr Samuel Crosbie, from plans by Messrs Young and Mackenzie, architects, Belfast". The newly-built house first appears in valuation records in 1900. By 1901 it was occupied by Rachel Bolton, a doctor's widow, together with her daughter (a teacher), her brother (a commercial clerk in a brewery), and a domestic servant. The 1911 census indicates the character of the terrace was beginning to change from large private houses to boarding houses catering for commuters and tourists, with sisters Sarah and Jane Mulholland running the premises as a boarding house with one lodger. The house remained in residential use until it was converted into apartments around 2000, with each of the former houses in the terrace now consisting of six dual-aspect flats.

The building is rectangular on plan with a full-height modern extension to the rear dating from the 1990s. It has a pitched natural slate roof with a conical roof and finial over the bay. The rectangular painted masonry chimneystack has a moulded plinth. The walling is painted smooth render and stucco with a moulded string-course between floors and continuous sills; dentilled eaves to the second floor.

The principal elevation faces north-east and comprises a three-storey bow window to the right; to the left is an entrance bay with a single opening to the upper floors. The door is timber-panelled with a plain fanlight in a moulded recess; Doric pilasters are surmounted by a bead-moulded arch with keyblock; the spandrels have a moulded swirl motif. Windows throughout are uPVC. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are on the projecting eaves, with plastic rainwater goods to the rear. The south-east elevation has three window openings to the third floor. The south-west (rear) elevation is completely abutted by the 1990s extension. The north-west elevation is abutted by the adjoining building.

The original character has been significantly compromised by the conversion to modern apartments and the loss of the original plan form, with the terrace now functioning as a façade retention. The original windows have been replaced with uPVC. A tarmacadam car-park and garages at lower level occupy the front, and a side wall with modern steel railing extends along the front. The setting has been further compromised by these additions.

The property is accessed from a lane between 82 and 88 Princetown Road. Bangor underwent rapid expansion following the arrival of the railway from Holywood in 1865, with land that had been open fields gradually filling with terraces and villas catering for the well-to-do middle classes, both residents and those attracted to Bangor during the summer season. In the latter decades of the nineteenth century, Bangor transformed from a declining manufacturing town to a thriving and fashionable resort, known as the 'Northern Brighton'.