‘Brewery Yard’, Church Street, Portaferry, Co Down, BT22 1LT

Brewery Yard, Church Street, Portaferry

This site formerly occupied the top of Church Street on the northern edge of Portaferry. It has been completely demolished and replaced by a business park built in 1993.

The original factory and warehouse yard dated from the latter half of the eighteenth century. By 1799, when shown on Patrick O'Hare's map of Portaferry, it was in the possession of William McCleery, though its precise purpose at that time is uncertain—it may have functioned simply as a warehouse complex. The site's uses evolved considerably over the following century and a half. By 1838 the buildings were used mainly for storing grain. During the 1860s to 1880s the yard housed starch manufacture and a saw mill. In the 1890s it appears to have reverted to grain storage, and around this period beer brought by road from Newtownards was kept here, a practice which gave rise to the somewhat misleading name "Brewery Yard" (the actual brewery owned by John Maxwell was located elsewhere, in the large buildings at the rear of No. 16 The Strand). In the twentieth century grain storage continued, with flax scutching and corn grinding mills also occupying part of the site at various times. During the 1980s cars were housed on the premises, and a short-lived tea room also operated there.

When surveyed in March 1970, the site comprised two blocks among a clutter of varied buildings with slate roofs. The walls were constructed of split rubble with some red brick, and a brick chimney was present, though already cracked. The buildings were then in use for rough storage. By October 1993, before demolition, the complex consisted of one and two storey structures of random rubble and brick construction with later alterations. A tapered brick and stone chimney survived to full height, though the buildings were by then derelict. The entire complex was demolished in 1992–93 to make way for the present business park. Notably, the L-shaped plan of the replacement office buildings follows the configuration of the earlier buildings as first recorded on O'Hare's 1799 map.