Victoria House, 2 Newry Road, Banbridge, Co Down, BT32 3HF

Victoria House is a detached, asymmetrical, two-storey, three-bay Georgian house with attic and basement, built around 1810 and located on Newry Road south of Banbridge town centre, adjacent to the junction with Kenlis Street and Commercial Road. It is a good example of its type and represents the survival of an earlier building as the town grew, though its historic character has been somewhat compromised by recent changes both to the building itself and to its immediate surroundings. The listing extends to the house, steps, boundary wall, and railings.

Architecture and Exterior

The house has a rectangular plan with rear returns. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with clay ridge tiles, and the chimneys are cement rendered with moulded cornices and moulded clay pots. Rainwater goods are replacement heavy-duty cast aluminium, and the copings are masonry. The external walls are cement rendered throughout.

The windows are replacement 6-over-6 double-glazed timber sliding-sash, fitted without horns, with moulded surrounds and masonry cills. The front door is a six-panel raised and pointed timber door with bolection mouldings and cast-iron ironmongery. It is set within an elliptical recess framed by granite Doric columns with entablature, surmounted by a bat-wing fanlight, all within an elliptical arched opening. The entrance is reached by granite steps with a perron over the basement trench, flanked by cast-iron railings.

The principal elevation faces east and is asymmetrically arranged. The door is positioned left of centre, with one window to its left and two to its right at ground floor level, and four first-floor windows placed directly above the ground-floor openings. The left (north) gable is also asymmetrically arranged, with two windows at ground and first floor and a single window at basement level to the left. The right (south) gable similarly has single basement, ground, and first-floor windows positioned right of centre.

The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged, with a single first-floor window and two second-floor windows. To the right it is abutted by a two-storey-over-basement, pitched-roof, gable-ended return with various diminished windows throughout. To the lower left at basement level there is a single-storey lean-to extension, and a small lean-to porch is centrally located on the rear.

Setting

To the front of the house is a small garden enclosed by a rendered wall with a wrought-iron gate. To the rear, the former outbuildings were demolished around 2000 and replaced with a two-storey commercial building with a pitched natural slate roof and timber casement windows. Beyond the rear of the site lies a large car park and supermarket.

History

Victoria House first appears as an uncaptioned building on Newry Street on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map of 1833, depicted as a square building standing alone to the south of Banbridge town centre. To its rear was a large L-shaped outbuilding. Around 1830, the house was occupied by James McWilliam, a local linen manufacturer who operated a bleaching works in the area, and was valued at £16. At that time the property was known locally as "Ball Alley," a name recorded in Piggott's Directory, owing to the existence of a ball court to the rear visible on the first Ordnance Survey map. By 1852 the house had been renamed Victoria House, most likely in honour of Queen Victoria's coronation in 1837.

By 1860 no discernible alteration had been made to the building, as shown on the second edition Ordnance Survey map. Griffith's Valuation of the same period recorded that James McWilliam had vacated the house by the 1860s and was residing in the Townland of Ballydown, while his mother Johanna McWilliam occupied the Newry Street property. In 1863, Griffith's Valuation noted that the L-shaped outbuilding to the rear had been let out by the McWilliams as an office used as a thread dye-works by Messrs Scott and Noble, local textile manufacturers; the store was valued at £14 and Victoria House itself at £21. Scott and Noble vacated the outbuilding around 1870, after which it was used as an out-office and combined with the house in the valuation records, raising the site's total value to £37. In 1891 the house and outbuilding were again assessed separately, with the house revalued at £28 and the outbuilding at £5.

Johanna McWilliam continued to reside at Victoria House until 1901, when her daughter Lucinda McWilliam came into possession of the site (James McWilliam had died in Ballydown in 1880). The 1901 Census records Lucinda McWilliam, aged 67 and Unitarian, as the sole occupant. The census building return described it as a first-class dwelling of nine rooms with a number of out-offices, including a stable, cow house, dairy, and piggery in the L-shaped outbuilding to the rear. By 1911 the census recorded that the outbuilding was used solely as a store.

Lucinda McWilliam vacated the house by 1916, when William McCaldin, a horse dealer, came into possession. In 1917 the Annual Revisions once again combined the house with the rear store, raising the site's value to £50. This substantial increase suggests that McCaldin may have carried out renovation work at that time; the entrance porch and the modified rear return recorded in the First Survey of 1969 may date from this period, though the valuation records do not explain the increase. The house was listed in 1977. By the time of the First Survey in 1969, an entrance porch had been added to the front of the building, concealing the original Doric granite doorcase and fanlight; this porch has since been removed, and the original doorcase is once again visible.

The former L-shaped outbuilding to the rear, which served variously as a thread and dye-works, out-office, and store, was demolished sometime after 1970, when it was still shown on the then-current Ordnance Survey map. Victoria House is no longer used as a private dwelling and has been converted to office premises, currently occupied by a solicitors' firm. Although the proportions and overall style of the house remain unaltered, some of its historic detailing and character were lost during a subsequent refurbishment.