Site of former 5-9 Church Street, Portaferry, Co Down, BT22 1LS

Site of former 5-9 Church Street, Portaferry

This site in Ballyphilip townland formerly contained three three-storey terrace dwellings, likely dating from the mid-19th century, probably the 1840s. The original buildings were destroyed by a terrorist bomb explosion in 1976. The site is now occupied by a plain two-storey terraced block of about 1980s date, containing two houses. This modern block is built at the angle of Church Street and set slightly back from the line of the original terrace.

The original dwellings were recorded in a survey of November 1970 before their demolition. Number 9 was a three-storey house with two second-floor and two first-floor drop-hung windows with horizontal astragals, and a keystone over the first-floor windows. The ground floor had a panelled door with a plain fanlight and keystone, followed by a shop front with two windows and a recessed door, all framed with panelled wood pilasters and mullions with flush top architrave and a small sign board above. The shop windows were sashes in two lights with elliptical arch heads, and had a flush-panelled and glazed door with a plain fanlight.

Numbers 7 and 5 each had four second-floor and four first-floor drop-hung windows without astragals. Number 7 had a drop-hung window on the ground floor and a recent flush door, with windows framed in panelled pilasters and a recessed layered lintel. Both had flush-panelled doors and narrow fanlights, with windows in four panes. All three dwellings had rendered walls, lined and painted, with V-jointed pilaster quoins, rendered and brick chimneys, and slated roofs. The frontage of the three houses measured approximately 52 feet. The condition was recorded as fair.

Historical evidence from cartographic and valuation sources indicates that buildings occupied this site from at least 1799, as shown on Patrick O'Hare's map. The 1834 Ordnance Survey map confirms their presence. The valuation plan of circa 1835-38 describes much of the south-east end of Church Street as filled with low two-storey dwellings, suggesting that the three-storey houses that stood here until 1976 were built sometime after this date. Their late Georgian style appearance and their appearance on the circa 1861 valuation plan suggest a dating to the mid-19th century, most likely the 1840s.

The site lies within a conservation area.