Rock Cottage, 3 The Square, Rostrevor, Co.Down

Rock Cottage, 3 The Square, Rostrevor

Rock Cottage is a two-storey house located within Rostrevor's conservation area on The Square. The building appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834, though structures in this general location are shown on an estate map of 1767.

The property has a complex history of subdivision and occupation. In 1835, according to the first valuation book, what is now number 3 formed a single property with the adjacent number 5. The records suggest they were originally separate buildings, with the taller number 5 having the appearance of a structure dating to around 1810. At that time the combined property was occupied by William John Maguire Esq., a gentleman listed among Rostrevor's clergy and gentry in Pigot's 1824 Directory. The 1835 valuation describes an extensive building comprising a main section measuring 52 feet by 24½ feet by 20 feet high, with additional 'returns' of varying dimensions, a basement storey, and offices (outbuildings) of considerable size.

By 1861 the property had contracted in size and was leased by Jane Nunn. In 1887 the building was formally split into the two separate houses that exist today, with number 3 initially occupied by Mrs Sanders. The property subsequently changed hands frequently through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with tenants including Margaret McBride (1893), Mary Gordon (1904), Annie McNeilly (1909), and others recorded through to 1948. By 1953 the property was noted as vacant and appears to have remained unoccupied until at least 1972.

The Square itself developed as part of Rostrevor's expansion in the 1760s, when the road (present B25 Kilbroney Road) linking Rostrevor to the new village of Hilltown was established or upgraded by Wills Hill, later 1st Marquis of Downshire. Its generous breadth suggests it was intended to function as a marketplace. In April 1769 the landlord Robert Ross obtained a patent to hold a weekly market and quarterly fairs in the settlement. The parish church, completed in 1821 at the north-east end, forms a visual terminus to this broad section of street. By 1834 the street's present extent of development was established, with the character described in the 1836 Ordnance Survey Memoirs as comprising mostly two-storey houses in good order, many providing furnished lodgings for summer visitors.