2 Brick Row, Horner'S Lane, Rostrevor, Co.Down

No. 2 Brick Row is a modest one-and-a-half-storey, two-bay red-brick terraced house, built around 1872–74, most likely to designs by William James Watson, a local architect who practised almost exclusively in south County Down, operating from Newry, Warrenpoint and Rostrevor. It forms part of a coherent terrace of six similar dwellings — Nos. 1–6 Brick Row — situated on the north-west side of Horner's Lane, off Bridge Street, Rostrevor, and sits within the Rostrevor Conservation Area.

The house is L-shaped on plan, facing south-east, with a single-storey pitched-roof rear return and a flat-roofed dormer extension to the rear that runs the full width of the original dwelling from ridge to rear wall. This rear dormer extension detracts from the building's original architectural quality, and the rear elevations along the terrace are generally much altered, with various extensions of differing shapes and sizes. The front elevation, however, retains considerable character and is well proportioned and robustly detailed.

The terrace is arranged in symmetrical pairs, each pair sharing a recessed semi-circular arched doorway at the centre. Open porches are formed by continuous over-sailing eaves supported on decorative painted timber brackets with trefoil detailing, and are flanked on either side by narrowly projecting gabled bay windows. Each pair of dwellings shares a dormer, with each individual house having a single diminutive window to the shared dormer. Rectangular-section red and blue brick chimneys rise at apex level. Both the gabled bay windows and the dormers are fitted with decorative pierced painted timber bargeboards.

Walling is generally in English Garden Bond red brick, with a red brick plinth and single courses of blue brick at window sill and impost levels. Door and window jambs have stop-chamfered brick detailing. Window openings are square-headed, with red sandstone heads and splayed red sandstone sills to the front elevation. The gabled bay window to the south-west side of the porch has a paired top-opening timber casement window at ground-floor level with a sandstone head, and a semi-circular red sandstone arch above with a flush herringbone-pattern brick spandrel in the tympanum. Windows throughout are typically timber casements with top-hung night vents.

The front roof pitch is covered in natural slate, graded in size with larger slates at eaves level tapering to smaller slates near the apex, and finished with angled black clay ridge tiles. The rear dormer extension is covered with felt sheeting, and the rear return is finished in fibre-cement slates. The chimney to the south-west of the elevation has nine courses of blue brick to its upper half and two terracotta clay pots. Eaves are narrow with exposed painted timber rafter ends. Rainwater goods to the principal elevation are generally cast iron, with half-round guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes; the rear elevation and rear return have uPVC rainwater goods.

To the front, the shared gravelled yard — bounded along Horner's Lane by a random-coursed rubble stone wall with rock-faced coping — has a vehicular entrance to the east. This boundary wall further augments the character of the terrace's setting. To the rear, the site is bounded by a high stone retaining wall. The rear north-west elevation, where visible, consists of the flat-roofed dormer extension at first-floor level, with a top-opening timber casement window and a slim concrete sill set into smooth cement-rendered walling. To the south-west side of the rear is a single-storey pitched-roof rear return extending north-west to meet the boundary with a shared rear access passage; it has a single top-opening timber casement window to its north-west end and a six-panelled painted timber door on its north-east elevation, with a single timber casement window to the south-east side of the door. A narrow concrete yard to the north-east side of the rear return is partially covered with a mono-pitched clear corrugated Perspex canopy. Ground-floor walling and the rear return are finished in painted smooth cement render. The house is attached to No. 3 Brick Row on its south-west side and to No. 1 Brick Row on its north-east side.

To the south-west end of Brick Row, a pair of two-and-a-half-storey red-brick semi-detached dwellings occupies a raised site; these bear a similarity to the Brick Row houses but are considerably larger and differ in a number of details.

The terrace was constructed on land leased by Edward Greer, a local solicitor and magistrate who resided at Moygannon, and replaced three earlier houses located to the rear of Bridge Street that were demolished to make way for it. In September 1872 the Irish Builder recorded that Watson had designed four new houses forming the first portion of a terrace for Edward Greer, with the contract awarded to Alexander Whelan, a Newry-based building contractor, on a tender of £1,550. The terrace was recorded as complete by at least May 1874. Its construction formed part of the rapid development of Rostrevor during the mid-Victorian period, which also coincided with the arrival of the tramway from Warrenpoint in 1875 and the construction of the Rostrevor Hotel the following year.

No. 2 Brick Row was originally valued at £3 in the Annual Revisions and was initially leased to a Mr. Thompson by the Greer estate. By the turn of the 20th century it was occupied by Mr. Wallace Stewart and his family. The 1901 Census of Ireland building return described it as a second-class dwelling comprising three rooms with no outbuildings to the rear. The property changed hands frequently over the following decades. By the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), its value had risen to £4, with ownership of the row having passed to a Mr. Francis Morrow by the 1930s. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the total rateable value stood at £5 and 5 shillings, with the house owned by a Mr. Daniel Rooney and occupied by a Ms. Mary Haydock. Nos. 1–6 Brick Row were included in the Rostrevor Conservation Area in 1979 and were listed in 1981. In 1995 No. 2 Brick Row underwent an extensive renovation, which included the re-slating of its roof in Bangor Blue slates, the installation of cast iron rainwater goods, the repointing of its brickwork, and the installation of new window frames throughout.