Gate Screen, 60-62 Princetown Road, Bangor, Co Down, BT20 3DT

A nineteenth-century rendered gate screen built circa 1875, located at the entrance to 60 and 62 Princetown Road, Bangor, providing shared access to these Victorian villas. The design appears to have been inspired by the nearby Seacourt estate, built approximately ten years earlier in ashlar sandstone.

The screen comprises painted masonry square gate piers with moulded cornices and square caps, flanked by curved dwarf plinth walls with projecting coping. Replacement timber railings terminate in circular piers rising from square pedestals with moulded offsets. Each pier is topped by a bell-shaped cap rising to a square plinth which may once have supported a finial, now absent. The gates themselves have been removed. The walling is finished in smooth render. The structure is positioned on a raised site overlooking Bangor Marina, accessed via a sloped tarmacadam driveway to the east.

The screen is distinguished by good craftsmanship and detailing, and possesses group value with the Victorian villas to which it provides access. The gate screen appears to be contemporary with the dwellings themselves. This area of Bangor developed towards the end of the nineteenth century as the town expanded into a fashionable resort and commuter town following the opening of the railway in 1865. The semi-detached pair of villas, known as Augustaville, first entered valuation records in 1875 as a development by Robert Russell Junior, initially valued at £26.10s each, rising to £37 by 1882. A photograph held by Bangor Heritage Centre dated 1887 shows Augustaville still under construction. By 1895 the properties were being let furnished as seasonal holiday lets. The 1901 census records Charles Lepper, a gentleman with private income, as occupier, accompanied by his wife, daughter, and domestic servants. Subsequently occupied by Thomas E McConnell, an auctioneer and valuer, and later by Patrick Moore and Hugh Moore. The houses remain in use as private residences today.

Permission has been granted for the removal of the gate screen.