13 The Square, Rostrevor, Co.Down

13 The Square, Rostrevor

This two-storey building of Grade B2 listed status stands within Rostrevor's conservation area. It is a house and shop that appears to date from circa 1810-20, based on its architectural character, though it is first documented in the 1835 valuation book as a relatively new property owned by Mrs Sculford. The original valuation recorded it as measuring 38 by 23½ by 20½ feet, with a return section of 16 by 16½ by 16 feet and offices measuring 17 by 7 by 10 feet and 21 by 19 by 13 feet, with the latter identified as a bake house.

The building's functional history reflects Rostrevor's development as a market town. By the 1861 valuation it was described as a small drapery shop with private lodgings, held on long lease by Robert Willis. The property was sublet in 1866 to P. Graham, followed by Ellen Lindsay in 1867 and William Shaw in 1872. Before 1877, the shop became the local post office, taking over this role from the premises at 4 Mary Street. The 1901 census records William Shaw as a 57-year-old retired postmaster living blind in the house with his niece Sarah Mary McNeilly, who served as postmistress, along with Martha Louisa McKeown and a domestic servant. The building then contained 12 rooms in use. Sarah Mary McNeilly is listed as tenant in 1902, and Robert Armstrong in 1910, at which point the post office had transferred to 7 Bridge Street. Armstrong remained resident until 1929. By 1936 the shop section had become a branch of the Belfast Banking Company, managed by Thomas Craig, who was succeeded by Wilfred Purdy in 1940. The building acquired the name "Bank House" around this time and continued as a bank—transferring to the Northern Bank when it merged with the Belfast Banking Company in 1970—until at least 1975.

The site appears on all estate maps from 1767 onwards. The Square itself, running north-east to south-west, is likely to have been established in the 1760s as part of the road improvements and village development undertaken by Wills Hill, later 1st Marquis of Downshire, as he developed the new village of Hilltown. Its generous breadth and name suggest it was intended to function as a marketplace. In April 1769, Rostrevor's then landlord Robert Ross obtained a patent to hold a weekly market and quarterly fairs within the settlement. The 1767 map shows development established on both eastern and western sides as far as the present south-western extent and to the site of the current parish church to the north-east. The church, completed in 1821, formed a closing of the vista along the broader portion of the street. By the 1834 Ordnance Survey map, the present extent of development was already in place. The October 1836 Ordnance Survey Memoirs describe Main Street as running north-east to south-west for 620 yards, with the section between the new and old church (180 yards) measuring 120 feet broad, the remainder averaging 30 feet wide. The houses were noted as nearly all two storeys high and in good order, with many providing furnished lodgings for summer visitors.