9-11 Ferry Street, Portaferry, Co Down, BT22 1PB

9-11 Ferry Street, Portaferry

A two-storey terrace dwelling with integral public house, probably dating from around 1850. The building retains its simple Victorian character and has been little altered.

The property sits on the west side of Ferry Street, south of Portaferry town square. The east-facing front façade is asymmetrical. At the centre is a panelled timber door with fanlight, with a sash window to its left. To the right of this door is a second doorway containing double doors with glazed upper panels and a plain fanlight, providing access to the pub. A two-pane fixed light window with acid-etched glass design is positioned to the far right. Timber-framed and painted pub signs are displayed above the second door and window. An additional projecting internally-illuminated pub sign and traditional timber sign are mounted above the pub entrance. The first floor contains three sash windows, arranged as on the ground floor to the left. The front façade is finished in lined render with moulded quoins. The exposed portion of the south gable is blank and rendered. The gabled roof is covered with fibre cement slates and has two potless red brick chimney stacks, with a taller rendered chimney stack belonging to the adjacent property to the north. A small cast iron skylight sits to the left on the roof at front level, and there is a cement render parapet to the south gable. Clay ridge tiles complete the roof finish.

The rear façade is two-storeys with a roof of asbestos slates, metal guttering and PVC downpipes. The wall is finished in smooth cement render. The first floor contains three rectangular timber windows, two of which are modern fixed lights with top-hung vents and one of side-hung casements with top-hung vent. The ground floor has two timber fixed light windows with top-hung vents and a central doorway containing a pair of tongued and grooved sheeted timber doors in an unmoulded timber frame. A single-storey rear return has a corrugated asbestos sheet roof, metal gutter and smooth cement-rendered walls. Windows here are timber fixed lights and side-hung casements. The return contains a tongued and grooved sheeted door and a timber-slatted door. The rear yard is surfaced in cement screed.

Historical records show that around 1835 much of the west side of Ferry Street comprised modest single-storey dwellings. Valuation maps of circa 1835 indicate that this site and ground immediately to the north formed a single long property belonging to Henry Smith, consisting of a single-storey house and office building. The valuation map of circa 1861 shows the property plan much as it exists today, confirming a mid-19th-century date of construction. At that time the property was owned by Robert Crangle. According to the present owners, part of the ground floor was converted to a public house in the early 1900s.