15-16 The Strand, Portaferry, Co Down

15–16 The Strand, Portaferry

This is a large two-storey terrace house situated at the western end of the Strand, overlooking Strangford Lough, with a privately owned history stretching back to the 1770s. Its Edwardian appearance — defined by full-height canted bay windows and a carriage gateway — conceals a much older and architecturally layered structure. The listing covers both the house and the warehouse complex to the rear, and the building sits within a conservation area.

The front façade faces roughly south and is asymmetrical. At its heart, the main portion of the house to the east of the carriage gateway was built in the 1770s. Around 1870, the section to the west of the gateway — formerly the site of a small coastguard watch house built around 1820 — was incorporated into the house, extending it beyond the gateway. Between approximately 1905 and 1910, the entire front façade was remodelled with the addition of the three full-height bay windows that give the building its present Edwardian character. This remodelling may have been carried out for James McCausland, a shipbreaker who owned both the house and the warehouses in the early 20th century.

The front elevation has an off-centre front doorway with a timber panel door and a large plain fanlight, set within a moulded fluted surround with a small decorative keystone. Three steps fan outward from the door, bounded on either side by the inner faces of the flanking bays. Immediately to the left of the door is a two-storey, three-sided canted bay with a hipped roof covered in Bangor blue slates, with moulded cement render ridges and a small decorative finial. A similar bay sits to the far left, though its finial is now broken. To the right of the front door is a broader bay of similar design. All three bays have three sliding sash windows without astragals on both floors; the first-floor windows are slightly shorter than those on the ground floor, and cill courses are present at first-floor level. The window surrounds throughout match those of the front door. The ground floor of each bay is finished in plain render; the first floor is finished in pebbledash. The first-floor section between the bays is finished in lined render. A chamfered plinth runs along the entire front elevation and the bases of the bays. The first floor has vermiculated chamfered quoins, and the ground floor has plain chamfered quoins. A dentilled eaves course runs along the roofline.

Between the first and second bays from the left is a large coach doorway, fitted with an uneven plain sheeted timber door and a wicket gate. Above it at first-floor level are paired sliding sash windows with surrounds matching those of the bays. A single sliding sash window sits at first-floor level directly above the front door.

The exposed west gable is finished in lined render and has three sliding sash windows positioned to the far left: one at ground-floor level, one at first-floor level, and a third to the right at an intermediate level.

To the rear of the house, the left side features a two-storey mono-pitch roofed return, with a glazed door on the ground floor to the right and a four-over-four sash window on the right side of the first floor; the roof slopes down towards the adjoining No. 14. To the right of this return is a small single-storey lean-to with modern windows, a modern door, and a Velux window in the roof. To the far right is a segmental arch-headed coach arch, with a modern window above it at first-floor level and a sash window to its right. A tall yellow brick chimney sits to the right of centre at eaves level of the main roof. There are four cast iron skylights.

The main gabled roof is covered with Bangor blue slates on the east side and what appear to be asbestos slates on the west. A stone parapet in the middle of the roof marks the join between the original house and the portion added around 1870. There are three yellow brick chimney stacks with bracketed corbelling and matching pots. Rainwater goods consist of cast iron ogee gutters and square downspouts.

To the west of the rear of the property is a large range of snecked rubble warehouses, partly two-storey and partly three-storey but all of the same overall height and covered under a single continuous pitched roof. These warehouses largely date from the 1780s and were originally constructed as a brewery by a John Maxwell. They feature an assortment of doorways, windows, a large arch, and a small gable that formerly housed lifting gear. Evidence survives of other structures to the east of the warehouse range that have since been demolished.

The history of the site is well documented. A lease from Patrick Savage to John Maxwell dated 13 June 1780 records the origins of the brewery. Patrick O'Hare's map of Portaferry, drawn in 1799, shows buildings on the site of the present house as well as the warehouse complex to the rear, all arranged around a courtyard. Deeds held by the owner in 1997 indicate the house itself was built around 1770, predating the brewery. The first valuation records of around 1835–38 corroborate this date, noting that the house was approximately 60 years old at the time of survey. By 1838, the house — comprising the portion above and to the east of the gateway — was in the hands of a Julia Johnston. The warehouse complex was a separate property at that point, belonging to a William McCleery, and was no longer in use as a brewery but simply as stores. To the west of the gateway stood the coastguard watch house, recorded in the 1838 valuation as a single-storey structure of 10 feet in height and described in letters within the Savage/Nugent Papers as having been built around 1820. By the time of the second valuation in 1861, all three properties — the house, the coastguard station, and the warehouses — remained distinct, with the house by then in the hands of a Hugh Brown. The owner of the warehouses at that point is not recorded. At some time between 1861 and 1900, likely around 1870 when a new and larger coastguard station was built at the south end of Portaferry, the watch house was demolished or substantially remodelled, and the house was extended westward over its site. Given that the watch house was only single-storey, outright demolition was probably the simpler course. The portion of the house west of the gateway was subsequently used as an office. The Edwardian remodelling of the front façade followed around 1905–10, and after McCausland, the property passed to a Mr H.T. Barrie, who used the warehouses for storing potatoes for shipping.