20 Victoria Square, Rostrevor, Co.Down

20 Victoria Square, Rostrevor, County Down

This is a mid-terrace, three-bay, two-storey house with attic, built in 1880 to designs by David Mahood, local builder and contractor. It forms one of five similar houses — originally known collectively as Albert Terrace — that line the northwest side of Victoria Square, south of Rostrevor town centre. The five houses together share group value with one another (the adjacent properties being nos. 14, 16, 18 and 22 Victoria Square). The listing covers the house itself, the front boundary walling, the gate, and the attached outbuilding to the rear.

Architectural Overview

The house has a T-shaped plan facing southeast, with a three-storey return projecting from the centre of the rear elevation. The principal front elevation is symmetrical in composition, a quality that gives the house much of its formal Victorian character. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate, with roll-top terracotta ridge tiles and raised verge tiles. A pair of hipped dormers to the southeast face — each with a slate roof, lead flashing, terracotta ridge tiles and a finial — sit above the main roofline. The overhanging eaves are supported by scrolled brackets fixed to a painted timber eaves board, with a painted timber soffit below. Rainwater is carried by uPVC ogee-moulded guttering discharging to circular downpipes.

There are two red brick chimneys: one to the southwest, shared with No. 18 Victoria Square, and one to the northeast, shared with No. 22 Victoria Square, both with corbelled copings.

The ground floor walling is finished in smooth render; the first floor in roughcast render. A smooth raised rendered sill course runs at first floor level.

Windows and Entrance

The window openings are square-headed with a roll-moulded lip to the reveal edge at the timber box frame. Windows throughout the principal elevations are three-over-three margin-paned timber sliding sash windows, unless otherwise noted.

The central entrance is particularly elegant. It is set within a depressed — or three-centred — arched opening with a projecting roll-moulded edge to the rendered reveal. The door itself is a square-headed, six-panelled timber door flanked by side-lights with scrolled pilasters. Above is a fanlight with a glazed circular inset. The entrance is flanked on either side by single-storey canted bays, each with a hipped lead roof and half-round uPVC guttering.

The dormers are fitted with square-headed timber casement windows.

Side and Rear Elevations

The southwest elevation is attached to No. 18 Victoria Square. The side elevation of the rear return is two-bay and three-storey with a flat roof, with square-headed openings throughout and three-over-three margin-paned timber sliding sash windows. Timber casement windows appear at first and second floor level of the rear return.

The rear elevation faces northwest and is three-bay and two-storey. The projecting central rear return has a flat roof with a moulded string course at second floor level, which may represent the eaves level of a former cat-slide roof. There are flat-roofed dormers to each side of the rear return. The return itself has a single-bay, single-storey lean-to abutment to the northwest with a slate roof. At ground floor, to the right side of the return, there is a half-glazed timber door flanked by side-lights and an overlight. To the left side of the return at ground floor is a four-over-four timber sliding sash window. Timber casement windows serve the rear return and dormers.

The northeast elevation is attached to No. 22 Victoria Square. The side elevation of the rear return is three-storey, with a single-storey monopitch-roofed extension adjoining to the northwest. At ground floor level there is a multi-paned glazed door with two sliding sash windows adjacent to it. Rainwater goods to the rear are a mixture of cast-iron and uPVC.

Alterations

Alterations have been made to the rear return, which detract to a certain extent from the overall character of the building. Repair works to the roof, windows and floors were carried out in 1995.

Interior

The original layout survives and a substantial proportion of the original interior features remain, representing a fine and largely intact Victorian interior consistent with the date of construction.

Setting and Outbuildings

No. 20 sits within a formally arranged Victorian square. Victoria Square is laid out on three sides around a central green, primarily accessed from Shore Road to the southwest. Two similar terraces and a pair of semi-detached and detached villas define the boundaries of the square. The house is set back from the road behind a low smooth rendered boundary wall with rounded coping and square-plan piers with domed copings, together with a decorative timber gate. A concrete pathway flanked by a formal lawn, with a pair of concrete steps, leads to the entrance.

To the rear, the garden is enclosed by rendered boundary walling, with a sheeted timber door opening onto a shared alley. A three-bay, single-storey rendered outbuilding within the rear garden, with a monopitch slate roof, abuts the house at ninety degrees and is attached to the boundary wall of No. 22 Victoria Square. The outbuilding appears to be contemporary with the house and retains timber sheeted doors and four-over-four timber sliding sash windows. The rear garden has a formal lawn, gravel paths and a mature hedge.

Materials summary: natural slate roof; cast-iron rainwater goods to the principal elevations (with some uPVC to the rear); smooth and roughcast rendered walling; timber sliding sash windows throughout, with timber casement windows to the rear only.

Historical Context

Rostrevor's picturesque position on the northern shore of Carlingford Lough, with the Mountains of Mourne rising behind it, made it a popular resort in the 19th century. The area now known as Victoria Square, close to the shoreline on the southern outskirts of the town, was unoccupied on both the 1834 and 1859 Ordnance Survey maps, and the stretch of Shore Road south of the square did not yet exist at that time.

The listed buildings in Victoria Square comprise three groups: a terrace of five houses (nos. 14–22, originally Albert Terrace), a terrace of three houses (nos. 34–38, originally Victoria Terrace), and a pair of semi-detached houses (nos. 42–44, originally Glenmore Terrace). All three names appear on the Ordnance Survey map revised in 1901–02 and published in 1904, and again on the map revised in 1919 and published in 1930. It was not until the map revised in 1950–52 and published in 1954 that the address was recorded as Victoria Square, though the name had been in use considerably earlier: it appears in street directories and probate records from the 1920s, and a 1927 article in The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine refers to "the grassy square called Victoria Square" at Rostrevor in the context of research carried out there in 1926. Albert Terrace also appears in street directories under the alternative name Cloughmore Terrace.

The development of all three terraces was largely the initiative of members of the Mahood family. David Mahood, the designer of Albert Terrace, was born in County Down around 1830, the son of Alexander Mahood. In 1859, then working as a carpenter in Newcastle, County Down, he married Sarah Jane Mahood of Donaghmore in Donaghmore Church of Ireland. By 1871, when a widower, he was a builder based in Newry, and in that year married Eliza Jane McMurray of Warrenpoint in Warrenpoint Presbyterian Church. By 1881 he was at Upper Edward Street, Newry, and by 1898 at Monaghan Street. In 1898 he was a subscriber to George Lister Sutcliffe (ed.), The Principles and Practice of Modern House-Construction (London, 1898). Both the 1901 and 1911 census returns record him as resident in Warrenpoint, aged 70 and 79 respectively. He died on 14 October 1911. An obituary referenced in the Dictionary of Irish Architects records him as responsible for the erection of Newry Town Hall and the bridge on which it stands, the Great Northern Railway stations at Warrenpoint, Navan and Newry, railway works at Dundalk, the Warrenpoint and Rostrevor tramways, and Warrenpoint waterworks.

David Mahood appears to have developed Albert Terrace on his own initiative, while Victoria Terrace was developed in conjunction with a James McMurray — possibly a brother-in-law through his second marriage, though this has not been confirmed. McMurray may be the James McMurray, a 68-year-old retired master painter resident in Warrenpoint in the 1901 census, who died on 8 February 1904. Glenmore Terrace was built by John Mahood, born around 1820 and possibly David Mahood's older brother, who was a painter and decorator in Rostrevor and died on 24 February 1890.

Glenmore Terrace was the first of the three blocks to be constructed, appearing in the Valuation Revision Books in 1882, with its name first recorded in John Mahood's will of 8 April 1886. Victoria Terrace followed, appearing in the Valuation Revision Books in 1887. Albert Terrace was constructed last, between 1898 and 1903 — the two terraces presumably named after the Queen and her late consort.

No. 20 Victoria Square was identified in Valuation and Revaluation records as property no. 7 Albert Terrace. It first appears as a new entry in the Valuation Revision Books in 1900, listed as a house and yard with a rateable valuation of £30. In its early years the house had a high turnover of occupants, consistent with the suggestion that Albert Terrace's houses may initially have been used primarily as holiday homes.

The First General Revaluation of 1935 records the property under the name Cairn Lodge (also spelled Cairnlodge), occupied at that time by Adelaide Mary Barker, with a rateable valuation of £35 for the house and yard. The property subsequently passed to the Moore family: probate records show that the Reverend Thomas Moore, a Methodist minister, of Rossowen and of Cairn Lodge, Rostrevor, died on 5 July 1945 at Cairn Lodge. By 1947 the property had passed to Dorothy Moore. A second floor flat was created within the property by 1953. Dorothy Moore died in 1961, and by 1965 the property had been acquired by James S. McCullough.