82 Hamilton Road, Bangor, Co Down, BT20 4LG

A single-bay two-storey end-terrace cottage, built around 1869 as a cottage hospital and converted into three dwellings in 1912, located on Hamilton Road, Bangor. The building was originally established as Bangor Cottage Hospital by Harriet Ward. It first appears in valuation records in 1881 as a 'Hospital'. The 1885-6 Medical Annual and Practitioners' Index records that Bangor Cottage Hospital had 6 beds with admission by weekly payment of 5 shillings. The hospital is shown on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1901 captioned 'Cottage Hospital & Home' and in 1909 was described in valuation records as 'Bangor Cottage Hospital'. The hospital closed on the opening of Castle Street hospital in 1910 and was converted in 1912 by Bangor Urban District Council into three dwellings, all valued at £7 and leased from the council. By 1912 the building was occupied by Hugh McNeilly, and by 1923 by William Gordon. A newspaper advertisement of June 1985 records that the houses had been let to council employees on Service Tenancies. The building's social and historic interest as a former cottage hospital established by the Ward family, and its subsequent conversion to council housing, is of note.

The cottage is square on plan with a projecting porch and single-storey side return. It has a pitched natural slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and overhanging sheeted eaves. Tall rectangular brick and render chimneystacks with six decorative terracotta pots rise from the roof. The walling is Flemish bonded red brick with cement quoins and plinth. Windows are paired 1/1 timber sliding sash with horns, with sandstone sills and label moulds. Plastic rainwater goods are throughout.

The principal elevation faces south-west and is symmetrically arranged with a window opening to the ground floor on either side of the projecting porch. The porch comprises a segmental timber door with cast-iron door furniture set in a chamfered brick reveal with flat brick lintel, and is lit to east and west by slender round-headed windows. The north-west elevation has a window opening to both ground and first floor. The north-east elevation is abutted by the adjoining building. The south-east elevation has a window opening to ground and first floor and is abutted by a modern extension, which adjoins an outbuilding that was originally the mortuary. The exposed section of the return has two window openings and a timber half-door. Where the extension and outbuilding meet there is a simple timber door.

The detailing is largely intact but rather plain, reflecting the original use as a cottage hospital. Although much of the interior has been modernised, the group as a whole represents a type that is becoming rare.

The terrace is situated to the north entrance of Ward Park beside the Carnegie library and is set back slightly from the road. It is paved to the front and south-west with hedgerow to all sides. There is a small garden to the rear, accessed from the south-west by a cast-iron latch gate.