20 The Square Rostrevor BT34 3AZ

This is an informal two-storey end-of-terrace house of probable pre-1830s construction, situated at the centre of the village of Rostrevor on the north side of The Square. It was most recently converted to use as a café around 2022, having previously served as a barber's shop. The interior has been radically altered and on that basis the building does not meet the criteria for statutory listing, though it falls within a conservation area and is of vernacular character.

The building comprises a main two-storey gable-ended front block facing south into The Square, with a full-height back return. A small single-storey extension appears to have been added to the rear (north) end of the return. Behind the property runs a long, narrow strip plot containing some outbuildings at the south end and a garden to the north.

The south (front) elevation is asymmetric and finished in plain painted render. The entrance is positioned right of centre, fitted with a relatively recent panelled timber door and a boarded-up overlight. To the far right is a smaller doorway, presumably providing access to the rear, with a timber tongue-and-groove door. To the left of the entrance are two windows of slightly differing widths but both of roughly standard proportions, fitted with timber six-over-six sash frames and painted stone cills. The first floor has three similar windows, none of which align with the ground-floor openings. The cills of the upper windows are broader than their respective openings, while those at ground level match the width of their openings.

The west elevation is the gable of the main front block, facing into a narrow passage. It is rendered and appears to have no openings. The remainder of the west elevation and the rear elevation could not be observed. The main block has a double-pitch roof covered in asbestos tiles (to the front at least), with two rendered chimneystacks. Drainage fittings include a cast-iron downspout and PVC guttering to the front.

The site is shown as developed on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834. In the valuation book of 1835–36, it is recorded as a relatively new house with shop, offices, and yard in the occupation of Thomas Hill. The recorded dimensions of the main section (15 feet by 22 feet by 15½ feet), a portion described as "over gate" (8 feet by 22 feet by 7½ feet), a return (10 feet by 15 feet by 15½ feet), and an outbuilding (10 feet by 15 feet by 8½ feet) are repeated in the 1861 valuation without change. These measurements, combined with the informal appearance of the front elevation, strongly suggest that the building standing today is largely that recorded in 1834. By 1861 the property was operating as a small grocery shop, leased by Robert Aiken from a William Sanxter. Sanxter, who also owned a hotel a few doors down on the former site of the present numbers 12–14 The Square, retained an outbuilding to the rear measuring 8½ yards by 5½ yards by 1½ storeys. At that time, attached to the gable of the main front block there was also a separate small office and weighbridge, leased directly from the Ross estate by a John Hill. This addition appears to have remained in place into the early 20th century.

The sequence of occupants from the 1860s onwards is not entirely clear, but Robert Aiken appears to have been succeeded around 1866 by a Mr Fagan (possibly Robert Fagan), followed possibly by a Mr Emerson around 1867, then Edward McCullagh around 1870, a Mr McVeigh (possibly Patrick McVeigh) around 1877, and Richard Cole around 1882. In the 1901 census, Richard Cole, a retired 76-year-old widower, was living here with his unmarried daughter Margaret Cole, a grandson Matthew Cole, and two boarders, John and William Greene. The building was recorded at that time as a second-class, slate-roofed dwelling with seven rooms in use. Richard Cole died around 1907. By the 1911 census the occupants were Margaret Cole and her nephew Matthew, together with Matthew's wife and infant daughter, both also named Margaret Cole, with the elder Margaret still listed as householder. She remained so in 1930, succeeded by Matthew by 1936, who was in turn followed by Edward Cole in 1960, who was still in residence in 1972.

The Square and Church Street occupy a north-east to south-west alignment that does not appear on Sloane's map of 1739 or Kennedy's map of 1755, but is first shown on an estate map of 1767. It is probable that the thoroughfare was established as part of the laying out or upgrading of the road — the present B25 Kilbroney Road — linking Rostrevor to the new village of Hilltown, which was being developed by Wills Hill, later 1st Marquis of Downshire, from the 1760s onwards. Its generous width, and its name, suggest it was also intended to serve as a market place. It is perhaps no coincidence that in April 1769 Rostrevor's then landlord, Robert Ross, obtained a patent allowing him to hold a weekly market and quarterly fairs within the settlement. The 1767 map shows the eastern and western sides of the street apparently developed to roughly their present extent south-westward and as far as the site of the present parish church to the north-east. The church itself was completed in 1821, providing a closing of the vista along the broader portion of the street. By the time of the 1834 Ordnance Survey map, the pattern of development visible today was already in place, with buildings shown opposite the church and continuing along the narrower part of the carriageway to the north-east.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of October 1836 offer what is perhaps the earliest surviving description of this part of the town: "Main Street runs north-east and south-west, 620 yards in length, the breadth of that part contained between the new and old church (a distance of 180 yards) being 120 feet broad, the remainder averaging 30 feet in breadth. The houses in this street are nearly all 2-storey high and the greater part of them in good order, a number of them having furnished lodgings for the accommodation of strangers in summer. On coming into the town at its lower or south-western extremity, this street presents a grateful coup d'oeil, the most pleasing and remarkable object of which is the new church, situated at the extremity of the broadest part of the Street and standing in line with its direction, its body and square tower appearing in good relief against the thick and luxuriant foliage of the trees to the north of the building."