5 Bridge St., Rostrevor, Co.Down

This Grade B2 listed building is a house and shop dating from around 1820, shown as a developed site on the 1834 Ordnance Survey map. The 1835 valuation book records it as a 'new' shop and house measuring 19½ feet by 28 by 23 feet, with a back room over a gate of 8 by 14 by 15 feet and an office of 20½ by 21½ by 16 feet with a return of 11 by 8 by 6 feet. It was likely built alongside the adjacent property to the immediate southeast (originally a separate dwelling) and shares similar architectural characteristics with that building.

The property's early occupants included William Tempest, recorded as the owner in 1835 and resident in 1838. From 1861, the building was let to Mrs Elizabeth Brain under the landlord Robert McMinn. The 1861 valuation records dimensions of 6 yards 1 foot by 9 by 2 storeys with attic, a part over gate in the rear of 3 by 4½ feet, a return of 5 by 3 by 1 storey (slightly longer than in 1835), and an outbuilding of 7 by 7 by 2 storeys. Mrs Brain was succeeded by a succession of tenants: George Copeland in 1868, John Calvert in 1873, Michael O'Hare in 1876, Eliza Smyth in 1879, David Boal in 1883, Thomas Marshall in 1884, and Robert William Booth in 1891.

From 1894, Mary Anne Marshall occupied both number 5 and number 7. The 1901 census records her as a 60-year-old widow originally from Belfast, living alone in what was then a combined building of two storeys with 11 rooms in use, described as a '2nd class' dwelling. By around 1910, the property came into the possession of Mary Gwynne, possibly a relative of Mrs Marshall, who acquired the lease of both houses after Marshall's death around 1914. The 1911 census identifies Gwynne as a 38-year-old married woman from Belfast, living on an annuity with her two teenage sons; the building then contained 8 rooms in use. Robert Gwynne was the householder in 1942, followed by Thomas McPoland from 1956 until at least 1972. The property was amalgamated with number 7 Bridge Street sometime after 1979.

Bridge Street originated as part of the road from Kilkeel, connecting that settlement with the original roads to Rathfriland (now Greenpark Road) and Newry (a route that appears to have followed present Warrenpoint Road before heading inland along today's Rath, Donaghguy and Greenan Roads). Oliver Sloane's County Down map of 1739 shows Rostrevor's settlement comprising only buildings along the northeastern side of the road, suggesting this side of Bridge Street may mark the earliest part of the village. Development on both sides of the street is shown on an estate map of 1767 and Williamson's county map of 1810, and had reached its present extent by the 1834 first edition Ordnance Survey map. Known in the 1830s as Post Office Street owing to the presence of that establishment, the street was renamed Old Post Office Street by 1861 and finally Bridge Street around 1894. The post office later returned to premises on the street (number 7) around 1917.

The 1836 Ordnance Survey Memoirs describe Bridge Street as running from the centre of the main street in a southeasterly direction to Rostrevor bridge, measuring 155 yards long, 95 feet broad at its broadest point at the north and western end and 25 feet at its narrowest part near the bridge. The houses are two-storeys, in good order, all used for shops and furnished with lodgings to accommodate strangers.

The building is situated within a conservation area.