15 The Square, Portaferry, Co Down, BT22 1LW

15 The Square, Portaferry

A large and very fine three-storey terrace house of probable 1820s construction, set on the squint within the terrace on the west side of The Square in Portaferry town centre. The building measures approximately 8 metres in frontage.

The front façade, facing east, is built in variously coloured coarse rubble stone with brick surrounds to the upper floor windows. The façade is asymmetrical. Roughly to the centre of the ground floor is an elliptical archway filled with two panelled double doors with a scumble finish to both doors and frames; the left-hand door is false. To the left of the doorway is a double sash window with horns and no astragals, with a flat arch above it. To the right of the doorway is a semi-circular segmental arch with chamfered quoins, filled with timber-sheeted double doors. The first floor contains three single windows similar to those on the ground floor but reduced in height, each with a plastered reveal and flat brick arch and surround; the middle window is not centred. The second floor has three windows, slightly shorter than those on the first floor. An eaves course runs across the façade. Parapets rise to the gables. Cast iron gutters with extended metal brackets run along the eaves. The gabled roof is covered with Bangor blue slates that reduce in size towards the ridge. Yellow brick chimneys with coping and decorative chimney pots (though not all matching) rise from the roof. The building abuts a smaller two-storey house on the right-hand side; the exposed gable of this adjacent building is rendered.

Historical records suggest the site was occupied from at least 1799, when a building in possession of John Rowan appears on Patrick O'Hare's map of that year. The valuation returns of around 1835 record a 'new' three-storey house on this site in possession of William McCleery, together with a gateway, cellar and outbuildings. The valuation records note that McCleery built the house himself and that 'the entrance beside the gateway is under the house and is used as a car house', suggesting the present unusual double doorway was originally the entrance to a room for storing a cart, with the main stair to the house (confined to the upper floors) accessed from within the store. This explains the peculiar arrangement of the double doorway. William McCleery (or a relative of the same name) remained in possession of the house at the time of the 1863 valuation but is not recorded as resident in the town by 1870. During the later 19th century, the ground floor was integrated with the main dwelling house, converting the former 'car house' into the present hallway and fitting the double doorway into its arch. Photographic evidence from around 1890 to 1900 shows the façade much as it appears today.