Old Market House (& Court House), New Street, Donaghadee, Co Down

Old Market House and Court House, New Street, Donaghadee

The Old Market House is a substantially intact two-storey building built around 1819, standing as a free-standing rectangular block on the south-east side of New Street. The building is cement rendered and exemplifies the practical market house design common to the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with a largely open market hall at ground floor and an upper room serving as a court house and centre for local social functions.

The building is locally important both historically and socially. It was built by Daniel De la Cherois, the then proprietor of most of Donaghadee, who is believed also to have designed it. The house was constructed as the centrepiece of New Street, which De la Cherois developed in the early 1800s to link The Parade and harbour with High Street, facilitating the transportation of goods to places such as Newtownards and Belfast.

The south-east front facade features a large central bay that projects marginally and dominates the composition. To the ground floor of this bay are three semicircular-headed arch openings. The central opening is an entrance with decorative curving wrought iron gates and a large fanlight displaying mildly gothick tracery. This opening has a similar architrave with keystone and Gibbian blocking stones. The two outer openings have similar fanlights with large six-pane windows filling the rest of the opening, with matching architraves. To the first floor of the bay are three sliding sash windows with Georgian panes, set on a cill course. The bay is topped with a pediment. To either side of the central bay is a similar arched opening, but with a central panelled door and large three-pane sidelights in place of windows. Above each of these outer arches, on the first floor, is a sliding sash window matching those in the bay.

The south-west facade has two semicircular-headed arch recesses to the ground floor, similar in size to the arched openings at the front, with inner arched recesses. To the first floor are two rectangular recesses of the same size as the windows to the front, set on a cill course. The north-east facade repeats this arrangement but with windows—similar in style to those at the front—set within the inner arch recesses.

The rear facade is finished in roughcast. In the centre of the ground floor are three semicircular-headed shallow arch recesses. The centre and left recesses each contain an inner semicircular-headed sliding sash window with Georgian glazing bars, sections of which appear to have been removed. The right arch has a high-level semicircular window with tracery similar to the fanlight at the front. To the far left and far right of the ground floor are squat sash windows with Georgian panes. To the first floor, far left, is a sash window matching those at the front. To the right of this are four evenly spaced window-like recesses which may once have been actual window openings.

The front, south-west, and north-east facades are all topped with a parapet set on a cornice, behind which lies a shallow slated hipped roof. Cast iron rainwater goods run down the building. The building rests on a chamfered plinth with chamfered quoins to the ground floor front.

Architecturally, the building displays simple classical details characteristic of its period and purpose. The semicircular-headed arches, fanlight designs, and sash windows all speak to the refined taste of its era, while the overall sturdy composition reflects its role as a civic and commercial building.

Historically, the 1837 Ordnance Survey Memoirs noted that no regular markets were held within Donaghadee, though six fairs were held annually with little business transacted, suggesting that the market space at ground level was underutilised by this time. However, the petty sessions were held in the court room every Wednesday, the manor court every three weeks, and the court leet held each May to elect officers for the town and manor. Fairs ceased to be held in the town altogether at some point prior to around 1880. Some time just prior to 1949, two of the three central arches that had previously led into the market hall were blocked.

In 1990, the property was completely renovated, with the ground floor sympathetically converted to shops and offices. The upper court room, also renovated, now houses the Elim Christian Centre.

The building sits within a conservation area and remains an important landmark in Donaghadee's urban landscape, testimony to the town's mercantile and administrative heritage.