Percy Lodge, 55 Church Street, Dromore, Co Down, BT25 1AA

Percy Lodge, 55 Church Street, Dromore

Percy Lodge is a detached two-storey-over-basement, three-bay, red-brick gabled house built around 1860 to designs by the architect Thomas Turner (died 1891), who also served as county surveyor for Counties Cavan and Dublin. It is a particularly fine and largely intact example of his work, retaining its original proportions, detailing, plan form, and setting. The house was originally known as Dromore Cottage and was built for William McMurray, proprietor of Thomas McMurray & Co., a linen and bleaching business established around 1750 by his father Thomas McMurray. Turner's plans, held by the current owner, are dated 1859, though valuation records suggest the house was completed between 1861 and 1864, when it first appears in the Annual Revisions as a house valued at £31, leased from the Irish Church Temporalities Commissioners and occupied by a William McClelland.

The house is T-shaped on plan and sits on a mature site to the south side of Church Street, west of Dromore town centre. The roof is pitched natural slate with angled ridge tiles, rendered chimneystacks carrying four tall clay pots each, decorative bargeboards and fascia with drop finials to the gables, and cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on decorated projecting timber eaves, with cast-iron downpipes and hoppers. The walls are Flemish-bonded red brick with lime and aggregate pointing on a sandstone plinth. Windows throughout are 1/1 timber-framed sash with projecting granite sills; those on the ground floor are square-headed and those on the first floor are round-headed.

The principal elevation faces north. All ground floor openings have a slated label over them. The projecting entrance bay at the centre is symmetrically arranged, with the dual entrance at ground floor level and two windows at first floor (the right-hand one with leaded stained glass). The left cheek of this bay has a margin-paned sash window; the right cheek has two round-headed openings — one blind and one with margin-paned stained glass — and a rectangular blind opening above. The left and right bays each have a blind opening and a window to the basement. The dual entrance itself consists of two raised-and-fielded six-panel timber doors: the left is the main entrance and has brass door furniture; the first floor right has a modern leaded-and-stained glass window. The exposed basement on either side of the entrance bay is enclosed by a brick-walled enclosure with stone coping and corner pier. To the left of this enclosure is a 1/1 window with margin panes at ground floor level and a half-panelled timber door. To the right is a blind opening at centre first floor and left ground floor, with a round-headed leaded-and-stained glass window to the ground floor right.

The east elevation has a window at first floor and a canted bay window with fish-scale slates at ground floor. The south elevation has a gabled bay to the centre with a window at first floor and a half-panelled timber door and window at ground floor; the left and right bays each have a window with a slated canopy at ground floor. The west gable has a window at first floor and a canted bay window with fish-scale slates at ground floor.

The house is set on a large mature site opposite the old Station Master's house. The boundary to the north along Church Street is formed by a random-coursed, rock-faced stone wall screened by mature trees, with an entrance to the northwest. The entrance is marked by square ashlar gate piers with chamfered shafts and Gothic pointed caps, supporting cast-iron gates, with a cattle grid and a tarmacadamed driveway leading to the front of the house. To the north, a timber-sheeted gate to Church Street is set in a round-headed granite reveal, accessed by a path cut into a steep earthen bank. Sandstone steps lead to the garden to the north. To the east is a modern L-shaped building housing a garage and a granny flat.

William McMurray made Percy Lodge his permanent residence. The Annual Revisions record that the bleach mill of Thomas McMurray & Co. was situated immediately next to the house and was valued at £90. According to Bassett's Directory of County Down (1886), the firm were manufacturers of linen and cambric handkerchiefs and bleachers and finishers, with their Dromore factories established in 1827 and international agencies in London and Paris by 1886. William McMurray continued to reside at Percy Lodge until his death in 1897, after which the cottage and adjoining bleach mill were reduced in value to £24 and purchased outright by S. R. Murphy and A. W. Stevenson of Belfast and Lurgan. The 1901 Ulster Town Directory recorded that these new owners had built a large weaving factory capable of holding 400 to 500 looms on the adjoining field, along with a number of dwelling houses. Murphy and Stevenson let Percy Lodge to James Alexander Doak, employed as the linen factory manager. The 1901 Census describes Doak (aged 32, Presbyterian) as residing at Percy Lodge with his wife Jane (aged 35) and their two infant children. The census building return classified Percy Lodge as a second-class dwelling consisting of 12 rooms, with sole out-offices including two stables, three cow houses, a fowl house, and a barn. Doak continued to reside at Percy Lodge until at least the late 1930s. The house was listed in 1975 and continues in use as a private dwelling.