14 Victoria Square, Rostrevor, Co.Down

14 Victoria Square, Rostrevor, County Down

This is an end-of-terrace, three-bay, two-storey house with attic, built in 1880 to designs by David Mahood, a local builder and contractor. It is rendered and painted throughout, and forms the southernmost house of a group of five similar properties originally known as Albert Terrace, which together line the northwest side of Victoria Square. The square is arranged around a formal central green on three sides, primarily accessed from Shore Road to the southwest, with semi-detached and detached villas forming the boundary to the southeast. The house shares group value with the four adjacent properties (nos. 16–22 Victoria Square).

The plan form is T-shaped, facing southeast, with a two-storey return centred at the rear.

Exterior

The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with roll-top terracotta ridge tiles and mortared verge tiles. A red brick chimney to the southwest gable has a corbelled coping; a similar chimney to the northeast is shared with No. 16 Victoria Square. Scrolled brackets on a painted timber eaves board support a painted timber soffit beneath the roof overhang. Rainwater is collected by uPVC ogee-moulded gutters discharging to circular downpipes. Two dormers face southeast, each with a hipped slate roof, lead flashing, terracotta ridge tiles and a finial.

The walling is smooth rendered to the ground floor and roughcast rendered to the first floor, with a smooth raised rendered sill course at first-floor level.

The principal front elevation faces southeast and is symmetrical, with a central entrance flanked by single-storey canted bay windows, each with a hipped natural slate roof and half-round uPVC gutters. The entrance opening is depressed-arched (three-centred) with a projecting roll-moulded edge to the rendered reveal. The door itself is square-headed and six-panelled in timber, flanked by sidelights with scrolled pilasters, and surmounted by a fanlight incorporating a glazed circular inset. Window openings throughout are square-headed with a roll-moulded lip to the reveal edge at the timber box frame, and are glazed with three-over-three margin-paned timber sliding sash windows unless otherwise noted. The dormers have square-headed timber casement windows. A concrete pathway flanked by a formal lawn, with a pair of concrete steps, leads to the entrance.

The southwest gable features a pair of projecting chimney breasts to the ground and first floors, which join in a pointed arch at attic level with crow-stepped gables having stone copings.

The side elevation of the rear return is two-bay and two-storey with a cat-slide roof. It has square-headed openings throughout: three-over-three margin-paned timber sliding sash windows to the first floor, a timber casement window to the ground floor, and a timber panelled door with fanlight over.

The rear elevation faces northwest and is three-bay, two-storey, with a projecting central rear return having a cat-slide roof to the northwest. This return has a single-bay, single-storey abutment to the northwest with a slated mono-pitch roof. Square-headed openings are used throughout. To the right side of the return on the ground floor there is a three-part timber casement window with multi-paned fixed upper lights and an arched central pane; to the left side of the return on the ground floor is a uPVC casement window. Three small modern rooflights are present at attic level. The northeast elevation is attached to No. 16 Victoria Square. The side elevation of the rear return is two-bay and two-storey, with square-headed openings, a uPVC casement window and a timber sheeted door. A timber sheeted door also serves the single-storey extension on this side. Painted cast-iron rainwater goods and a vented soil stack are present to the rear.

Interior

The original layout and a substantial proportion of original features survive internally.

Setting

No. 14 is set back from the road behind a low smooth rendered boundary wall with curved coping, square-plan piers with domed coping, and a decorative timber gate, all painted. The rear garden is enclosed by a high rendered wall with a square-headed opening to the northwest. Within the rear yard, a single-storey rendered outbuilding with a mono-pitch slate roof abuts the house at 90 degrees and is attached to the boundary wall of No. 16 Victoria Square.

Materials

The roof is natural slate; rainwater goods are uPVC to the front with some painted cast iron to the rear; walling is smooth and roughcast render, painted; windows are timber sliding sash to the southeast elevation, the rear return and the first floor of the northwest elevation, with timber casement and uPVC windows to the ground floor of the northwest elevation.

Historical Background

Rostrevor developed as a popular Victorian resort owing to its picturesque position on the northern shore of Carlingford Lough, with the Mountains of Mourne rising behind it. The area now occupied by Victoria Square was unoccupied as late as the Ordnance Survey mapping of 1859, and the present stretch of Shore Road to the south of the square did not yet exist at that time.

The development of Victoria Square was carried out in three phases by members of the Mahood family and their associates. The first block to be built was Glenmore Terrace (now nos. 42–44), the work of John Mahood — born around 1820, possibly David Mahood's older brother, a painter and decorator in Rostrevor who died on 24 February 1890. Glenmore Terrace appears in the Valuation Revision Books in 1882, and is mentioned in John Mahood's will of 8 April 1886. Victoria Terrace (now nos. 34–38) followed, appearing in the Valuation Revision Books in 1887, and was developed by David Mahood in conjunction with James McMurray, who may have been related to Mahood through his second marriage and was possibly his brother-in-law, though this has not been confirmed. Albert Terrace (now nos. 14–22), of which No. 14 forms a part, was constructed last, appearing as new entries in the Valuation Revision Books between 1898 and 1903. Albert Terrace also appears in street directories as Cloughmore Terrace. All three terrace names appeared on Ordnance Survey mapping revised in 1901–02 and published in 1904, and again on the revision published in 1930. It was not until the Ordnance Survey map revised in 1950–52 and published in 1954, and in Revaluation Records of 1955, that the address for all these properties was formally recorded as Victoria Square, though the name had been in common use considerably earlier: it appears in street directories and probate records from the 1920s, and an article in The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine in 1927 refers to "the grassy square called Victoria Square" at Rostrevor.

David Mahood was the son of Alexander Mahood and was born in County Down around 1830. In 1859 he married Sarah Jane Mahood of Donaghmore, County Down, in Donaghmore Church of Ireland, at which time he was listed as a carpenter resident in Newcastle, County Down, with his father recorded as a farm steward. In 1871, by then a widower, he married Eliza Jane McMurray of Warrenpoint in Warrenpoint Presbyterian Church; on this record his father was listed as a forester, and the bride's father, Robert McMurray, as a farmer. By 1881 Mahood was based in Upper Edward Street in Newry, and by 1898 his address was Monaghan Street, Newry. In that year he was a subscriber to George Lister Sutcliffe (ed.), The Principles and Practice of Modern House-Construction (London, 1898). In both the 1901 and 1911 censuses, David Mahood is recorded as resident in Warrenpoint, his age given as 70 and 79 respectively. He died on 14 October 1911. An obituary referenced in the Dictionary of Irish Architects, originally published in Building News, records that he was responsible for the erection of Newry Town Hall and the bridge on which it stands, the Great Northern Railway stations at Warrenpoint, Navan and Newry, railway works at Dundalk, the Warrenpoint and Rostrevor tramways, and Warrenpoint waterworks.

No. 14 Victoria Square was identified in Valuation and Revaluation records as property no. 4 Albert Terrace. It appears as a new entry in the Valuation Revision Books in 1903, listed as a house and yard with a rateable valuation of £30, and was initially vacant. Over the following quarter-century the property had a succession of occupiers, consistent with Albert Terrace appearing to have been used primarily as holiday accommodation in its early years. The last occupier listed in the Valuation Revision Books (which extend to 1930) was Emma Burns, who had succeeded Annie Burns by 1921. The First General Revaluation of 1935 records the property under the name Inisfail (also spelled Inishfail or Innisfail), in the occupation of Mary Roberta Chambers, with a rateable valuation of £35. By 1953 Conn O'Hare had come into possession. In the 1960s Patrick Carvill (recorded by 1965) and George McKee (1969) were occupiers. By 1979 the property had been acquired by the Price family.

Recorded repair works include repainting and some repairs in 1984–85; repairs to the roof, windows and rainwater goods in 1989–90, completed satisfactorily by September 1990; and further repairs to the windows in 1994.