54 Frances Street, Newtownards, Co Down, BT23 3DY

54 Frances Street is one of three houses in a two-storey gabled terrace, probably built around 1835. The building has been substantially altered in recent times.

The front elevation features a plain 'Ards' doorway with a plain semicircular fanlight and panelled door to the left. To the left of the doorway is a single window, and on the first floor are two single sash windows. All windows have modern frames. The front facade is finished in lined cement render, unpainted. A large two-storey return extends to the rear with window openings of various sizes, all fitted with modern frames and finished in plain cement render. The roof is laid with Bangor blue slates, with asbestos-free slates to the return. PVC rainwater goods are fitted. A single red brick chimney stack serves the property.

Frances Street was laid out around 1817 as part of a new broad thoroughfare linking the new coach road from Belfast to the Donaghadee Road, replacing a much narrower Back Lane shown on Colville's 1720 plan of the town. The Ordnance Survey Map of 1834 shows that the western side of the street had been developed by that date, but the eastern end (then known as Little Frances Street) remained largely undeveloped. This particular site does not appear to have been built upon by 1834, but three dwellings had been erected by 1836, the date of the first valuation survey. At that time, No. 50 was in possession of William Crawford and rated at £5 8s 0d, with its two neighbours rated below that value. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of circa 1834 make reference to the erection of new houses by the Marquis of Londonderry at this time, who was granting leases for 60 years or three lives at a rate of 1 shilling per foot, upon which houses could be erected at the rate of 1 shilling per foot. No. 50 appears to have been renovated around 1880–1900, when the surrounds to the front windows may have been added and internal changes made, including the fireplace in the living room. Nos. 52 and 54 were substantially altered in the early 1990s, at which point the ground floor window of No. 52 was enlarged.