The Portaferry Hotel, 8-10 The Strand, Portaferry, Co Down, BT22 1PE

The Portaferry Hotel is a substantial two-storey hotel block occupying a prominent position on The Strand and the corner of Castle Street in Portaferry. It is not listed, though it sits within a conservation area. The building was delisted on 20 February 2006, the decision noting that, despite at least one element of the structure predating 1834, the cumulative effect of amalgamations, alterations, demolitions and rebuilding has left insufficient architectural character to justify listing.

The building as it stands today is the product of several distinct phases of development rather than a single construction campaign. It is long, relatively plain, and rendered and painted throughout. The main roofline is generally gabled but hips around the corner. The roof is covered in Bangor blue slates and carries three plain rendered chimney stacks with matching pots on the south elevation. A small cast iron skylight sits in the middle of the south roof slope. Rainwater goods are cast iron. Facade illumination lights are fixed at eaves level, and the hotel name is picked out in unobtrusive black lettering — to the left of centre on the south elevation and to the right on the west elevation.

The long south elevation facing The Strand is asymmetrical, a direct reflection of the building's origins as a collection of separate properties. Roughly at the centre is a modern timber and glazed flat-roofed porch with a wheelchair access ramp to the left and steps to the right. All windows are sliding sash with both horizontal and vertical astragals, though they vary considerably in size and configuration — single, double, and tripartite lights appear throughout. To the left of the entrance door on the ground floor there are four windows of varying size in a somewhat random arrangement: the second is a single light, the rest tripartite. To the right of the door are three windows, the first tripartite and the other two double. A plain sheeted timber door sits at the far right. At first floor level, four tall single windows occupy the left portion, three slightly squat tripartite windows sit in the centre, and six smallish single windows grouped in pairs occupy the right portion.

The west elevation, set on the slope of Castle Street, is stepped in two sections. The lower section on the corner is level with the south elevation and contains six windows in total: three unevenly spaced tripartite windows at ground floor level (sitting very close to pavement level) and three single windows at first floor level, the first two smaller and close to the eaves, the third slightly larger and positioned a little lower. The upper section further along Castle Street contains four single windows, arranged with two at first floor level on the left, one at ground floor level, and a fourth at an intermediate level.

To the rear, a mixture of large modern extensions has been added, appearing linked but likely built in stages. These are mainly flat-roofed and two storeys in height, though a small section is gabled. All rear window frames are modern.

The history of the site is well documented. Patrick O'Hare's map of 1799 shows a large building on the corner of The Strand and Castle Street, with the remainder of the Strand frontage forming part of a single substantial property that also included land to the rear and buildings now occupied by a separate restaurant. During the early 19th century the lease was subdivided: the rear buildings became Maxwell's Distillery, later a corn mill and by the 1860s falling into dereliction, while a tan yard was operated by one William Warnock. The corner section and a separate house further along The Strand continued as distinct residential properties. By 1835, the corner property was in the possession of a Hugh Boden and comprised a two-storey dwelling house with extensive single-storey outbuildings, while the house further along The Strand — also two storeys — was the home of Eliza Lyttle.

By 1860, Edward Bryce had obtained a lease of the large corner property as well as the house beyond, and for most of the following two decades ran a spirit grocers on the corner, presumably on the site of Hugh Boden's former outbuildings, while subletting the two houses. In December 1880 Bryce sold the lease to Henry McGrath, an auctioneer who became a prominent figure in Portaferry's social, cultural and political life. The property remained in the McGrath family until 1933, when it was bought by William Lyons, who sold it three years later to local businessman William McMullan. McMullan sublet the spirit grocers to a Mrs Corbett and her daughter Miss Thompson, who resolved to open a hotel on the site. During the late 1930s the spirit grocers and buildings fronting Castle Street were converted accordingly, and a door was opened through into the adjacent house on The Strand — almost certainly the former dwelling of Hugh Boden. In 1947 the lease passed to a Mrs Wilson, who had considerable experience in hotel management and extended the business to take in the whole of the former house. The Portaferry Hotel, as it had by then become known, remained in this form until 1991, when the present owners acquired the adjoining properties at numbers 8 and 9 The Strand — number 9 being in all probability the house occupied by Eliza Lyttle in 1835 — demolished them, extended the hotel onto that site, and extensively renovated the entire building in the process.