St Bronach's Parochial Hall, (Stella Maris building), 9-11 Bridge Street, Rostrevor, Co Down, BT34 3BG

St Bronach's Parochial Hall (formerly the Cloughmore Wine & Spirit Store), 9–11 Bridge Street, Rostrevor

This is a substantial two-and-a-half-storey rendered and gabled building, constructed in 1901 as a hotel and public house and now in use as a Roman Catholic parochial hall. It stands at the end of a short mixed terrace on the south-west side of Bridge Street, Rostrevor, and is relatively plain in appearance. The building is largely intact externally, its internal layout appears largely original, and some original detailing survives. It is of interest both as a good example of a public building of its period and as a relatively unaltered survivor.

Exterior

The front façade faces roughly north. It is rendered and painted, and finished at the top with a moulded eaves course. All roof sections are slated with red clay parapet and ridge tiles throughout. To the front of the main roof section there are two large but relatively narrow dormers with hipped roofs, each with a 2/2 sash window to the front and long narrow glazed panes to the sides. The dormer roofs are slated with red clay ridge tiles and simple finials. There are two brick chimneystacks rising from the main roof at the gable ends, and a further chimneystack set lengthways to the right of the rear return; all three have stepped corbelling. Rainwater goods are cast iron.

The front elevation is asymmetrical. To the left of centre on the ground floor is a pedestrian entrance with a panelled timber double door and a boarded-over segmental fanlight above. To the left of this doorway is a relatively large segmental-headed window with a mullioned and transomed frame: three small panes sit above a full-width rectangular pane, with the central upper pane opening in hopper fashion. The large lower pane is a relatively recent replacement — originally there were three panes divided by two mullions. This window has a flush bevelled sill and bevelled edges to the reveals. To the right of the doorway is a window identical to the one on the left. To the far right of the ground floor is another doorway matching the left-hand one, except that the door has glazed upper panels and the fanlight above is fully exposed with two panes. A moulded string course runs above all the ground floor openings, following the curve of their segmental heads.

On the first floor, to the far left, is a pair of relatively tall, narrow, segmental-arched plain sash windows on a shared sill, with bevelled reveals matching those at ground floor level. To the right of this pair is a single identical window, then another pair, then a single window to the far right. A string course similar to that at ground floor level — though angular rather than curved — runs above these openings in line with their flat arches. A further straight string course runs directly below first-floor sill level.

The broad east gable is finished in plain painted render. On the ground floor to the left is a 2/2 sash window, and to the far right is a small plain lean-to with no openings. On the first floor, to the left is a narrow window with a modern frame; to the right of this is a much narrower window with a 2/2 sash frame; and to the centre-right is a broader window with a modern frame. At attic level, to the left of centre, is a sash window with Georgian-type panes in a 3/3 arrangement.

The rear elevation is finished in plain unpainted render and is largely covered by a broad two-storey gabled return, with a narrower two-storey section to its west side under a mono-pitched roof. This narrower section is exposed only to the south side, where the ground floor has a small lean-to porch with a plain timber sheeted door, and the first floor has a tall narrow window with a relatively recent three-pane frame. The left-hand half of the gable of the large return projects forward. On the ground floor of this projecting half there is a window with a modern six-pane frame, and on the first floor a smaller window with a modern two-pane frame. The ground floor of the right-hand side of the return gable is covered by a large flat-roofed extension: to its west face there is a door and a boarded-up window; to the south face another door; and to the east face — which is flush with the east face of the return itself — a large window with a modern frame. To the first floor on the right-hand side of the return gable there is a window with a modern frame. On the east face of the return there is a large 2/2 sash window at ground floor level. This east face of the return is flush with the main east gable, and both it and the east face of the flat-roofed extension are rendered and painted to match the gable.

Immediately to the east of the building there is a vehicle gateway with tall plain timber gates. To the west side of the gateway is a tall square pier with a pyramidal cap, with a short length of wall extending westward from it, flush with the front elevation and rendered and painted in the same manner.

History

The building was erected in 1901 as a hotel and public house trading as the Cloughmore Wine & Spirit Store, originally run by a Patrick Brady, who leased the property from the Smyth family. It replaced an earlier, smaller, two-storey public house on the same site, recorded prior to around 1835. That earlier building is recorded as belonging to a Patrick Smyth in the 1830s; by the early 1860s the Smyth family had leased it to a John Cull, who held it until around 1892.

The present building passed to Catherine Brady in 1914, then to a Mr Cooney by 1918, and to a Felix Doran by 1929. It subsequently passed to a James Trainor and continued in use as a hotel and public house until the 1950s. The present caretaker has suggested that either Mr Doran or Mr Trainor may have carried out internal alterations during their tenures — specifically, that the large ground-floor room may have been created by combining two smaller rooms. The flat-roofed extension to the rear is believed to have been added in the 1930s or 1940s. Around 1955 the property was acquired by the local Roman Catholic church for use as a parochial hall, with the caretaker originally living within the building. More recently it has been used by various organisations including the local youth club.

Setting and street context

Bridge Street formed part of the original road from Kilkeel, connecting with early routes to Rathfriland and Newry. Oliver Sloane's County Down map of 1739 shows Rostrevor's buildings concentrated along the north-eastern side of this road, suggesting that this side of Bridge Street may represent the earliest part of the village. Development on both sides of the street is shown on an estate map of 1767 and on Williamson's county map of 1810, and the street had reached its present extent by the time of the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834. In the 1830s the street was known as Post Office Street, owing to the presence of that establishment; this became Old Post Office Street by 1861, and was finally renamed Bridge Street around 1894. The post office subsequently returned to premises in the street — at number 7 — around 1917.

The 1836 Ordnance Survey Memoirs describe the street as "leading from the centre of the main street in a south easterly direction to the bridge of Rostrevor… 155 yards long, 95 feet broad at its broadest or north and western end and 25 feet at its narrowest part next [to] the bridge. The houses are of 2-storeys, in good order, all used for shops and having furnished lodgings for the accommodation of strangers."

The building lies within a conservation area.