18 Victoria Square, Rostrevor, Co.Down

18 Victoria Square, Rostrevor

A mid-terrace Victorian house built in 1880 to designs by David Mahood, a local builder and contractor. The building forms one of five similar houses originally named Albert Terrace, which line the northwest side of Victoria Square. The square is formally designed with three sides arranged around a central green, primarily accessed from Shore Road to the southwest.

The house is a three-bay two-storey structure with an attic, facing southeast. It has a T-shaped plan form with a three-storey flat-roofed return added around 1986, centred at the rear. The pitched roof is covered with natural slate and finished with roll-top terracotta ridge tiles and raised verge tiles. Red brick chimneys are shared with the adjacent properties: one to the southwest with No. 16 Victoria Square, and one to the northeast with No. 20 Victoria Square. Both chimneys feature corbelled coping. Scrolled brackets on a painted timber eaves board support a painted timber soffit to the roof overhang. The guttering is uPVC with ogee moulding, discharging to a circular downpipe.

The principal southeast elevation is symmetrical and features a central entrance flanked by single-storey canted bays with hipped lead roofs and half-round uPVC gutters. The entrance has a depressed-arched opening with a projecting roll-moulded edge to the rendered reveal, a square-headed six-panelled timber door, side-lights with scrolled pilasters, and a fanlight above with a glazed circular inset. Pair of dormers to the southeast have hipped slate roofs, lead flashing, terracotta ridge tiles and finials, with square-headed timber casement windows.

The walling is generally smooth rendered to the ground floor and rough-cast rendered to the first floor, with a smooth raised rendered sill course at first-floor level. Window openings are square-headed with roll-moulded lips to the timber box frames. The primary windows are three-over-three margin-paned timber sliding sash windows.

The southwest elevation is attached to No. 16 Victoria Square. The rear elevation faces northwest and is three-bay two-storey with a projecting central three-storey return having a flat roof and a single-storey lean-to extension to the left side. The return has a further single-bay single-storey flat-roofed abutment to the northwest. Square-headed openings throughout contain three-over-three timber sliding sash windows to the rear elevation of the main building and to the first floor of the rear return, with timber casement windows to the ground and second floors of the return. Two large modern roof-lights serve the attic level. Painted steel external stairs are attached to the northwest of the return. The northeast elevation is attached to No. 20 Victoria Square.

The property 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. The rear garden is bounded by rendered walling along the boundary with adjoining properties. A single-storey roughcast rendered outbuilding with a shallow monopitched roof and sheeted double-leaf timber doors opens onto the rear access lane. A second single-storey rendered outbuilding within the rear garden has a mono-pitch 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 concrete coping topped with modern painted metal railings, with a central gate featuring scroll design.