NEWTOWNARDS
37-39 Court Street, Newtownards, Co Down
1988 (with Priory in distance)
The centre of the listed terrace
Flats in converted stables
In the first decade of the seventeenth century, Sir Hugh Montgomery
established Newtownards in the vicinity of a ruined mediaeval
Priory Church. He reconstructed the conventual buildings of the
old priory as his residence, Newtown House. At the same time he
enclosed the grounds in a square bawn with flanking towers. The
north wall ran along what is nowadays the south side of Court
Street as far as no. 37, but the south wall still survives alongside
a disused canal. Newtown House was burnt down in 1664, but the
Ordnance Survey map of 1834 shows the three flankers and bawn
wall still in place, together with formal gardens and an orchard
in the northern half of the bawn.
In 1744 the town was sold to Alexander Stewart, who was subsequently
ennobled as the Marquis of Londonderry, and a Londonderry Estate
map dated 1841 shows Court Street with several isolated terraces
of houses on the south side, but the site today occupied by nos.
37 and 39 was still empty. These two houses, which occupy part
of the site of the seventeenth century orchard, appear for the
first time on an estate map of 1848, and unusually they share
a central carriageway entrance. A tall random stone wall which
separates the back yards of nos.35 and 37 could well be the last
surviving remnant of the seventeenth century bawn wall on that
side. Court Street takes its name from the fact that the town
court convened in the old church from 1817 until the late 1840s.
Early street directories and valuation records indicate that the
street was inhabited by skilled workers, together with a few corn
merchants and weaving agents.
The houses became empty in the mid-1980s by which time they were
owned by the N I Housing Executive, which had ear-marked them
for demolition. Hearth was able to acquire them and obtain housing
association funding for the restoration of the two houses and
conversion of the rear stable block into flats.The houses were
provided with new kitchen returns and the roof structures were
strengthened, but they were otherwise little altered. The stable
block required extensive structural work, and some old door and
window openings were retained externally but blocked up inside;
the old external staircase to the stable now serves as the entrance
to the upper flat.
Client: Hearth Housing
Association Architect: Hearth
Quantity Surveyor: Rainey & Best
Structural Engineer: Kirk McClure Morton
Main Contractor: Hugh J O'Boyle Ltd, Downpatrick
Restored: 1993-94
Funded by Housing Association Grant and private finance
Accommodation: Two three-bedroom houses and two one-bedroom flats
