44 Meeting Street, Dromore, Co Down, BT25 1AJ

A group of three small, non-identical brick-built terrace houses erected in 1887, positioned on the sloping west side of Meeting Street to the south-east of Dromore town centre. They represent an increasingly rare example of urban vernacular architecture. The middle house, number 44, incorporates a large vehicle archway and has a notably wider frontage than its neighbours.

Number 44

The house has a painted brick front elevation. On the ground floor, the main entrance with a PVC door is positioned to the left. To the right of this is a window with a PVC frame, followed by a large vehicle entrance with timber-sheeted double doors. Above the vehicle doors is a semicircular arched tympanum filled with painted timber sheeting and a small central window with a PVC frame. A projecting brick course follows the line of the semicircular arch. On the first floor is a window matching the ground floor pattern to the left.

The rear elevation is finished in plain render, largely painted, though the section above the vehicle arch remains unpainted. The ground floor rear has a PVC door to the right and a window with a PVC frame to the left. The first floor incorporates another PVC-framed window roughly at centre, with a narrower modern-framed window above the archway to the left (this may belong to number 42). A tall rendered wall extends from the rear elevation and abuts a large two-storey brick-built outbuilding further west. This outbuilding stretches northward to enclose a yard at the rear of number 42.

The roof is slate with a central brick chimneystack. The rainwater goods are a mixture of PVC and cast iron.

Historical Context

Valuation records from circa 1863 show the site was previously occupied by separate dwellings: a single-storey dwelling under William Meaney on the present sites of numbers 44 and 46, and a two-storey dwelling home to Ann English occupying part of the present archway site and all of number 42. To the rear, on the site now occupied by the large two-storey outbuilding, stood McComb's Court, comprising four small dwellings along its west side. By 1878, two houses within McComb's Court were in ruins, and by the 1880s the remaining dwellings had been abandoned. In 1887, the court and the two street-facing dwellings were demolished and replaced by the present three brick two-storey houses and the large two-storey outbuilding. John Murphy is recorded as the original occupant of number 42, with George Bennett and William McCann occupying numbers 44 and 46 respectively by 1891.

Alterations and Current Condition

All three houses now have PVC windows and doors. The position of the ground floor door and window of number 46 has been recently altered. The architectural interest of the group lies in its style, proportion, and group value, though alterations have detracted from the original character.