1 Mourne View Terrace, Banbridge, Co Down, BT32 3HJ

A two-bay two-storey-with-attic Victorian end-terrace house built around 1890, located on an elevated site to the west of Newry Road, south of Banbridge town centre. The house forms the eastern end of a terrace of five dwellings, all similarly well-preserved with much original architectural detailing intact. Although relatively late in date and not among the finest examples of the Victorian terrace type, the group demonstrates proportions and detailing typical of the style and represents the mid-nineteenth-century development of Banbridge's town centre.

The building has a rectangular plan with a two-storey canted bay rising to a canted dormer and a two-storey return to the rear. The pitched natural slate roof features blue and black angled ridge tiles (with modern rooflights to the rear slope), and a hipped roof over the attic dormer with leaded ridges and hips. A rendered chimneystack with moulded caps and clay pots rises from the roof. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods sit on dentilled eaves.

The walling is painted smooth render with a dentilled moulded string course above the ground floor canted bay window. Windows are predominantly 1/1 timber sliding sash, round-arched to the dormer and camber-arched to the first floor with continuous sills to the canted bay; uPVC windows predominate to the rear. The principal elevation faces east. The two-storey canted bay window to the left has a dormer with windows to each face on each floor (square-headed to ground floor, camber-arched to first floor, and round-arched to the dormer). To the right at first floor is a 2/2 camber-arched window. The ground floor features a replacement panelled-and-glazed timber door with an elliptical overlight surmounted by a hood mould with carved foliate stops. The south elevation is abutted by an adjoining building.

The west (rear) elevation has a 2/1 window to the first floor and a replacement uPVC window to the ground floor right, abutted at the left by a two-storey return with its ridge level below the eaves level of the main block. The return contains various uPVC windows to each floor and a uPVC door to the south elevation, with an enlarged uPVC window to the ground floor at the gable. The north elevation of the return has a uPVC window to the first floor right and ground floor left; to the first floor left is a 1/1 window with coloured glass margin panes. The north elevation of the main block has a small round-arched window to the left at attic and a camber-arched window to the first floor left.

The house is set back from the street on its elevated site with a small front garden planted with shrubs and enclosed by a smooth rendered wall. The front path retains original terracotta and black square tiles. A two-storey painted brick outbuilding stands to the rear yard (shared with the neighbouring property) and features a timber-sheeted door and half-door to the ground floor and 2/2 and 2/1 timber sliding sash windows with brick sills to the first floor. A modern timber-sheeted gate to the north leads to a lawned side garden.

The terrace was developed by local builder John Gordon, with the first two houses completed by 1879 and a further three added in 1890, completing the scheme that had begun in the late 1870s. According to local tradition, John Gordon benefited financially from the Armagh railway disaster of 12 June 1889, in which 80 people were killed and 260 injured, and the compensation he received enabled him to complete the terrace. The terrace was originally named Mourne Terrace and from the 1920s became known as Mourne View.

Number 1 first appears in valuation records in 1890 at a value of £21, leased from John Gordon. The earliest recorded occupant was Thomas Crothers in 1890. William Kennedy followed in 1899, and his wife gave birth to a son at the house in August 1899. Elizabeth Gill occupied it from 1903; the 1901 census recorded her as a widow from Newtownards living with her six adult children, the eldest studying medicine while four others worked in the boot and shoe trade. In 1911, Elizabeth Gill remained resident with two of her children, including her son William, a boot merchant. Her married daughter and two young grandchildren also lived in the house at this time. William F. Gill, boot merchant, became the occupier from 1922, followed by James Gordon from 1929—likely a descendant of the original developer—and the house remained in the Gordon family until at least 1957.

A garden was added to the property in 1934, raising its valuation by £2. In the early 1930s the house was revalued at £26. The interior comprised a ground floor lobby, front reception with bay, kitchen, and scullery. The first floor contained a large bay-fronted reception room, one middle bedroom, one small rear bedroom, bathroom, and separate WC. The attic floor held a large bedroom, a full-depth dormer window to the front, a skylight to the rear, and one small box room. An enclosed yard with outbuildings and a side garden plot completed the property. A contemporary valuation note described the house as well built and in very fair condition and modernised. The valuer commented that it was the only house in the terrace to possess a garden. James Gordon appealed the valuation on account of the small frontage and cramped rear, and noted that the electricity board's poles and wires had spoiled the garden.

The house remains in use as a dwelling.