1-5 Court Street & 34 South Street, Newtownards, Co. Down, BT23 3NX-4JU

Site of former two storey block at the corner of Court Street and South Street, Newtownards, dating from the 1840s and now demolished.

The block comprised three houses and a shop, probably constructed in the 1840s. It featured rendered walls and chimneys, a slated hipped roof, and a bevel right-hand quoin. The first floor contained seven double-hung sash windows; the first two lacked astragals while the others had Georgian panes. The ground floor included an 'Ards' doorway and blocked-up window at one end, another 'Ards' doorway with blocked-up window and sash window above it, and a shop front occupying the remaining space. The shop front comprised four narrow panelled pillasters below a signboard with dentilled cornice, enclosing two shop windows with nine large Georgian panes, cheval de fris on the sills, and a recessed doorway with glazed flush-panelled door and wide plain fanlight. The other two houses had their own entrances: No. 5 featured a doorway with a five-course archivolt with blocked pillasters, sunrise fanlight and flush-panelled door; No. 3 had a similar doorway but with a plain fanlight. The frontage measured approximately 65 feet.

When first surveyed in October 1972, the block was recorded as being in poorish condition with all houses vacant. It was demolished at some point after 1972, around 1985, with the site subsequently converted to a car park, partly landscaped with shrubbery.

Court Street was laid out in the 1840s, taking its name from the nearby medieval priory which served as a courthouse between 1817 and 1850. The revised Ordnance Survey map of 1858 shows that the south side of Court Street had been completely developed by that date with a long unbroken terrace, of which this block formed part.