18 Victoria Square, Rostrevor, Co.Down

18 Victoria Square, Rostrevor, County Down

This is a well-proportioned and carefully detailed mid-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 five houses collectively overlook a formally designed square arranged on three sides around a central green, primarily accessed from Shore Road to the southwest. The listing extends to the house itself, its boundary walling, and an attached outbuilding.

Architectural Description

The house is rendered and painted, three bays wide, two storeys tall with an attic, and follows a T-shaped plan form facing southeast. A three-storey flat-roofed rear return, added around 1986, is centred at the back of the building and detracts to a certain extent from the overall character.

The roof is natural slate with roll-top terracotta ridge tiles and raised verge tiles. To the southwest, a red brick chimney with a corbelled coping is shared with No. 16 Victoria Square; a similar chimney to the northeast is shared with No. 20. Painted timber eaves boards carry scrolled brackets supporting a painted timber soffit beneath the overhanging roof. Rainwater is collected by uPVC ogee-moulded gutters discharging to circular downpipes. A pair of dormers face southeast, each with a hipped slate roof, lead flashing, terracotta ridge tiles, and a finial.

The ground floor walling is smooth rendered; the first floor is roughcast rendered, with a smooth raised rendered sill course at first floor level. Window openings 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 principal front elevation is symmetrical. The central entrance is flanked by single-storey canted bays with hipped lead roofs and half-round uPVC gutters. The entrance opening is depressed-arched — a three-centred arch — with a projecting roll-moulded edge to the rendered reveal. The door itself is a square-headed six-panelled timber door flanked by side-lights with scrolled pilasters, and topped by a fanlight with a glazed circular inset. The dormers above have square-headed timber casement windows. A concrete pathway flanked by formal lawn leads to the entrance via a pair of concrete steps.

The southwest elevation is attached to No. 16 Victoria Square. The side elevation of the rear return is two bays wide and three storeys tall with a flat roof, with square-headed openings throughout containing timber casement windows and flush timber doors at each floor level.

The rear elevation faces northwest and is three bays wide and two storeys tall. The projecting central three-storey return has a flat roof with a single-storey lean-to extension to the left side, and a further single-bay single-storey flat-roofed abutment to the northwest. The rear elevation of the main building and the first floor of the rear return retain three-over-three timber sliding sash windows. The ground floor and second floor of the rear return have timber casement windows. Two large modern rooflights are present at attic level. Painted steel external stairs are attached to the northwest face of the return. uPVC rainwater goods are used throughout the rear. The northeast elevation is attached to No. 20 Victoria Square; the side elevation of the rear return has a timber casement window, a timber-sheeted door, and uPVC rainwater goods.

Setting

No. 18 sits within a terrace of five houses forming the northwest boundary of a formal Victorian square. Two similar terraces are arranged around a central green, with semi-detached and detached villas forming the boundary to the southeast. 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 decorative timber detailing.

To the rear, the garden is bounded by rendered walls shared with Nos. 16 and 20. A single-storey roughcast rendered outbuilding — not of special interest — has a shallow mono-pitched roof and sheeted double-leaf timber doors opening onto the rear access lane. A second single-storey rendered outbuilding within the rear garden, with a mono-pitched slate roof, abuts the house at 90 degrees and is attached to the boundary wall of No. 20 Victoria Square. The remaining rear boundary is a roughcast rendered wall with a concrete coping topped with modern painted metal railings, with a central gate featuring a scroll design.

Historical Context

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 known as Victoria Square, on the southern outskirts of the town, was unoccupied as recently as the Ordnance Survey maps of 1834 and 1859, and the present stretch of Shore Road to the south did not exist at that time.

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 trained as a carpenter in Newcastle, County Down, and by 1871 was established as a builder in Newry. He was a subscriber to George Lister Sutcliffe's The Principles and Practice of Modern House-Construction (London, 1898), and his 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. In both the 1901 and 1911 census returns, Mahood is recorded as a resident of Warrenpoint, aged 70 and 79 respectively. He died on 14 October 1911.

The square as a whole comprises three groups of listed buildings: the terrace of five houses at nos. 14–22 (originally Albert Terrace), a terrace of three houses at nos. 34–38 (originally Victoria Terrace), and a pair of semi-detached houses at nos. 42–44 (originally Glenmore Terrace). These names appear on Ordnance Survey maps revised in 1901–02 and again in 1919; the address was not formally recorded as Victoria Square until the map revised in 1950–52, and the Revaluation Records did not amend the address until 1955, though the name had been in common use since at least the 1920s. An article in The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine in 1927 refers to 'the grassy square called Victoria Square' at Rostrevor.

Glenmore Terrace was the first of the three blocks to be built, appearing in the Valuation Revision Books in 1882. It was the work of John Mahood, born around 1820 and possibly David Mahood's older brother, who was a painter and decorator in Rostrevor and died on 24 February 1890. Victoria Terrace followed, appearing in the Valuation Revision Books in 1887, and was developed by David Mahood in conjunction with James McMurray, who may have been Mahood's brother-in-law through his second marriage. Albert Terrace — the group to which No. 18 belongs — was constructed between 1898 and 1903, and also appears in street directories as Cloughmore Terrace. Albert Terrace had a very high turnover of occupants in its early years, suggesting its houses were used primarily as holiday homes.

No. 18 Victoria Square was originally recorded as No. 6 Albert Terrace. It first appears as a new entry in the Valuation Revision Books in 1902, listed as a house and yard with a rateable valuation of £30. By 1907 Ellen Hanley was in possession of the property, and it remained with different members of the Hanley family until the early 1920s. The last occupier in the Valuation Revision Books (which run to 1930) was Elizabeth Welwood, in possession by 1929. The First General Revaluation of 1935 records the property name as Mullaney, with Elizabeth Welwood as occupant and a valuation of £35 for the house and yard. Elizabeth Nangle Welwood of Mullaney, Rostrevor, died in 1947. By 1955 the property had been acquired by Susan McKeever, and a flat on the first and second floors had by then been created and was occupied by Robert Gaston. In 1965 the Revaluation records amended Susan McKeever's name to Susan Kieran. The Kennedy family was in possession by the late 1970s.

At some point before the mid-1980s the property became a guest house. In 1986 there was an application to change its use to a residential home, and the rear return dates from approximately this time. In 1998 there was a proposed extension to the residential home. In 2000 it was noted that the rear extension had been built some 13 to 14 years previously. In 2007 there was a further proposal to extend and alter the building, then operating as a bed and breakfast with a self-contained apartment. The guest house has borne the name Glenbeigh.