26 Bridge St., Rostrevor, Co.Down

26 Bridge Street, Rostrevor

This is a Grade B listed building in the Bridge Street Conservation Area. The site appears on the 1834 Ordnance Survey map as an already-established property. The 1835 valuation book records a 'not new' house then occupied by Owen Feran, a butcher, measuring 17½ feet by 21½ feet by 15 feet high, with a section over a gateway of 9 feet by 21½ feet by 6 feet. Similar dimensions are recorded in the 1861 valuation (9 yards by 7 yards by 2 storeys, including the gateway section), when the occupant was David McNulty.

The property changed hands frequently through the later 19th century: John Cole in 1870, William Blackwood in 1872, Elizabeth White in 1873, Peter Fagan in 1875, and Margaret Cull in 1906. In 1911, Daniel McAlinden was the tenant, and at that date the rateable value rose from £6 to £10. The property is first referred to as a 'house and shop' in 1911, suggesting major alterations or even rebuilding took place around this time. The present frontage width does not match the dimensions recorded in 1834 and 1861, indicating the plot size may have been reduced at this period.

Further occupants included Charles Sloan in 1913, Peter Jones in 1920, John Dresden in 1921, Margaret Marrinan in 1922, and William J. Parr from 1940 until at least 1972.

The pitch of the roof and the position of the chimneystack within the roof slope rather than on the ridge indicate significant alterations occurred in the later 20th century, possibly affecting the neighbouring building (no. 24 Bridge Street) as well.

Bridge Street itself originated as part of the road from Kilkeel to Rathfriland and Newry. Oliver Sloane's County Down map of 1739 shows Rostrevor settlement initially confined to the northeastern side of the road, suggesting this may mark the earliest part of the village. Development on both sides is shown on an estate map of 1767 and Williamson's 1810 county map, reaching its present extent by the 1834 first edition Ordnance Survey map. The street was known as 'Post Office Street' in the 1830s, becoming 'Old Post Office Street' by 1861, and finally 'Bridge Street' around 1894. The 1836 Ordnance Survey Memoirs describe it as running southeast from the main street to Rostrevor bridge, 155 yards long, 95 feet broad at its widest (north and western) end and 25 feet at its narrowest point near the bridge. The houses are described as two-storey, well-maintained structures used for shops with furnished lodgings for visitors.