Next to the McKee clock stands this boondoggle that I’ve walked past many times over the past two decades. I’ve always wondered what it is, but never been able to locate any information about it.

It turns out that it’s a memorial drinking fountain… though the fountain itself has been missing for a very long time. It in fact predates the McKee clock by some decades.

On 29 September 1893, The Northern Whig recorded:

A memorial, of very handsome design, has been erected by the members of the Bangor Corinthians Sailing Club to the memory of the late Mrs. Arthur Hill Coates in the new Esplanade, Bangor. The memorial, which takes the shape of a water fountain of four jets, covered by a handsome dome, and standing upon a solid foundation of concrete, was erected by the firm of Messrs. McFarland & Company, of Glasgow, and bears the following inscription:—“Erected by the members of the Bangor Corinthians Sailing Club in memory of their sincere and true friend Mrs. Arthur Hill Coates, 1893.” The position occupied is the angle adjoining the Sandy Row Promenade, and it is scarcely necessary to mention that the new esplanade is considerably beautified and enhanced by the splendid structure.

The article in The Newtownards Chronicle on 7 October of the same year has fewer words, but I think is more accurate in its naming of the manufacturer as

Messrs. Macfarlane & Company

They at least agree that it is handsome.

The Royal Ulster Yacht Club has in its possession a letter to Mr Arthur Hill Coates which includes the line:

We also desire that at the same time you will convey to Mrs. Coates our warmest thanks for the great interest she has taken in the welfare and prosperity of the Club, and ask her acceptance of the accompanying diamond ring.

This happily suggests that Mrs Coates was aware of the esteem in which she was held before she died… and also rather suggests that there was a lot of money sloshing around sailing clubs in the late 1800s.