Shed at Ardglass Harbour, Ardglass, Co Down

A two storey fisherman's harbour-side store at Ardglass Harbour, located on the south side of the quay with its rear forming part of the boundary wall to the former Ardglass Castle. The building comprises an earlier single storey rubble structure to which a brick upper floor was added around 1900. The whole façade is whitewashed.

The building is roughly square in plan, measuring approximately 7.5 metres by 7.5 metres. The lower storey is constructed in rubble with the upper storey in brick. The front (north) elevation facing the quay contains a vehicle doorway and a window to the ground floor, with two windows and a central loft door to the upper floor. The east and west gabled elevations are blank; the east overlooks a walled yard, whilst a stone staircase rises against the west elevation, providing access to a laneway to the south. The south elevation backs directly onto a high rubble wall belonging to the former Ardglass Castle and has no openings. The roof is curved and felt-covered, supported by two McTear Belfast trusses.

The Belfast truss was developed in the mid-nineteenth century to provide efficient, lightweight, long-span roofs suited to industrial demands. The first known reference to a curved wooden felted roof structure supported by bowstring girders appears in a Dublin Builder advertisement from 1866 by the Belfast firm McTear & Co, felt-makers who continued manufacturing trusses until ceasing business in 1908. A second Belfast felt supplier, Anderson & Co., began producing trusses to a slightly different design in 1886, launching their Mark II version in 1896, which maximised long spans while maintaining light weight. This model was subsequently adopted by other companies. The term "Belfast truss" is now widely applied to all timber bowstring trusses where internal bracing members meet on the top curved member rather than on the bottom of the truss, as was conventional.

The building remains unaltered in character and is a good example of a small, relatively early Belfast truss-roofed structure still used for its original purpose. It is situated within a conservation area and is of industrial archaeological interest.