22 Victoria Square, Rostrevor, Co.Down

22 Victoria Square, Rostrevor, County Down

This is a well-proportioned and finely detailed end-of-terrace Victorian house, built in 1880 to designs by David Mahood, a local builder and contractor. It forms part of a group of five similar houses — originally known as Albert Terrace — that line the northwest side of Victoria Square, south of Rostrevor town centre. The listing extends to the house itself, its boundary walling, decorative timber gate, and attached outbuilding.

Architectural Overview

The house is a rendered and painted three-bay, two-storey building with an attic, arranged on a T-shaped plan facing southeast, with a two-storey return centred at the rear. Its principal southeast-facing elevation is formally symmetrical, with a central entrance flanked by single-storey canted bay windows with hipped lead roofs and half-round cast-iron gutters. The roof is pitched natural slate with roll-top terracotta ridge tiles and raised verge tiles. Scrolled brackets on a painted timber eaves board support the painted timber soffit to the roof overhang; rainwater is carried by a uPVC ogee-moulded gutter discharging to a circular downpipe. A pair of dormers face southeast, each with a hipped slate roof, lead flashing, terracotta ridge tiles and a finial, and fitted with square-headed timber casement windows.

The walling is smooth render to the ground floor and roughcast render to the first floor, with a smooth raised rendered sill course at first-floor level. There is a rendered chimney to the northeast gable with corbelled coping and terracotta pots, and a second chimney in red brick shared with the adjoining No. 20 Victoria Square to the southwest.

Windows and Doorcase

Throughout the house, window openings are square-headed with a roll-moulded lip to the reveal edge at the timber box frame. The windows are generally three-over-three margin-paned timber sliding sash windows. The entrance features a depressed (three-centred) arched opening with a projecting roll-moulded edge to the rendered reveal, a square-headed six-panelled timber door flanked by side-lights with scrolled pilasters, and a fanlight over with a glazed circular inset. These details are particularly elegant and are among the most characterful features of the building.

Side and Rear Elevations

The southwest elevation is attached to No. 20 Victoria Square. The side elevation of the rear return is two-storey with a cat-slide roof, with square-headed openings throughout fitted with three-over-three timber sliding sash windows. The northeast elevation forms the gable end of the terrace; a single-storey wall attached to the rear of this gable extends to the northwest, forming a boundary wall with an access lane to the northeast. The side elevation of the rear return at this end has a timber sheeted door and a three-over-three sash window at ground floor level; there is also a single sheeted door in the monopitched extension.

The rear elevation faces northwest and is three bays wide and two storeys tall, with a projecting central rear return having a cat-slide roof with terracotta verges and three low-profile rooflights, possibly original, roughly aligned with the first-floor windows. The rear return has a single-bay, single-storey abutment to the northwest with a monopitch slate roof. At ground-floor level to the right side of the return there are half-glazed timber double doors flanked by side-lights and an overlight; to the left side of the return at ground floor there is a four-over-four timber sliding sash window. A single margin-paned timber sliding sash window is centred at first-floor level on the rear return. Cast-iron rainwater goods serve the rear. Some uPVC replacements are present at the rear.

Interior

The original layout is largely intact and a substantial proportion of original interior features survive, contributing significantly to the interest of the building.

Outbuildings and Setting

A single-storey rendered outbuilding within the rear yard has a monopitch slate roof, abuts the rear elevation at 90 degrees, and is attached to the northeast boundary wall; it appears to be contemporary with the house and retains a timber sheeted door. To the rear there is also a pitched-roof garage with a painted timber sheeted door. A series of further monopitch and pitched-roofed outbuildings adjoin the boundary. The rear garden is enclosed by a rendered wall with formal lawn and paved paths.

At the front, the house 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. A concrete pathway flanked by formal lawn, with a pair of concrete steps, leads to the entrance.

No. 22 is part of a terrace of five houses forming the northwest boundary of a formally designed square. Two similar terraces and a group of semi-detached and detached villas are arranged around a central green, primarily accessed from Shore Road to the southwest. This formal setting greatly enhances the character of the house.

Historical Context

Rostrevor's picturesque position on the northern shore of Carlingford Lough, with the Mountains of Mourne rising behind it, made it a popular resort in the 19th century. The area now known as Victoria Square was undeveloped as late as 1859, when Ordnance Survey maps show it as unoccupied land close to the shoreline, with the present stretch of Shore Road south of the square not yet in existence.

The development of Victoria Square was largely the initiative of the Mahood family. David Mahood, son of Alexander Mahood, was born in County Down around 1830. He is recorded as a carpenter in Newcastle in 1859 and later as a builder based in Newry, first at Upper Edward Street and later at Monaghan Street. In 1898 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 census returns he is recorded as a resident of Warrenpoint, aged 70 and 79 respectively. He died on 14 October 1911. An obituary referenced in the Dictionary of Irish Architects 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.

The square's listed buildings comprise three groups: nos. 14–22 (originally Albert Terrace), nos. 34–38 (originally Victoria Terrace), and nos. 42–44 (originally Glenmore Terrace). These names appear on the Ordnance Survey 6-inch map revised in 1901–02 and published in 1904, and again on that revised in 1919 and published in 1930. It is not until the map revised in 1950–52 and published in 1954 that the address is given as Victoria Square, and the Revaluation Records did not adopt this address until 1955. However, Victoria Square had been in common use well before this, appearing in street directories and probate records from the 1920s. In 1927, an article in The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine refers to "the grassy square called Victoria Square" at Rostrevor in the context of research carried out there in 1926.

The first of the three blocks to be built was Glenmore Terrace, constructed by John Mahood — possibly David's older brother, born around 1820, a painter and decorator in Rostrevor who died on 24 February 1890 — which appears in the Valuation Revision Books in 1882. Victoria Terrace followed, appearing in those records in 1887, with David Mahood working in conjunction with James McMurray, who may have been related to Mahood through his second marriage and may even have been his brother-in-law, though this has not been confirmed. McMurray may be the James McMurray, a 68-year-old retired master painter resident in Warrenpoint, recorded in the 1901 census, who died on 8 February 1904. Albert Terrace, the group to which No. 22 belongs, was the last to be built, constructed between 1898 and 1903 on David Mahood's own initiative. Albert Terrace also appears in street directories under the name Cloughmore Terrace.

No. 22 Victoria Square was originally identified in valuation records as property no. 8 Albert Terrace. It appears as a new entry in the Valuation Revision Books in 1898, listed as a house and yard with a rateable valuation of £30, and was initially unoccupied. It subsequently passed through a succession of occupiers: Robert Belston (in occupancy by 1909), Henry Sheppard (by 1912), Annie Burns (by 1913), Mary Burns (by 1923), and Joseph H. Chambers (by 1926). In the First General Revaluation of 1935 it was the only house in the terrace not to be given a name; the occupier was listed as Mary Burns and the property, comprising a house and yard, was valued at £35. In 1939 the valuation was raised to £37 following the construction of an office. By 1942 the property was in the possession of Kathleen and Eva Little, and by 1968 it had been acquired by Thomas O'Sullivan. Heritage Buildings records indicate that proposals were made in 1994 — when the property was known as Ballydevane — to carry out repairs to the roof, chimneys, rainwater goods, and related elements.