30 Market Square, Dromore, Banbridge, Co Down, BT25 1AW

30 Market Square is an almost symmetrical two-bay, three-storey mid-terrace commercial premises built around 1830, located on the south side of Market Square in the centre of Dromore. It is a good example of late Georgian architecture and is representative of the early development of the town. Much of its original architectural detailing survives, including the original doorcase and a variety of glazing. The building has group value with the Town Hall opposite.

ARCHITECTURE

The building has a rectangular plan with a three-storey extension to the rear under a cat-slide roof, and a single-storey flat-roof extension also to the rear. The roof is pitched natural slate with blue/black angled ridge tiles, raised stone verges, and rendered chimneystacks to the gables. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods run along the projecting eaves, with cast-iron hoppers and downpipes.

The walls are finished in painted smooth render, with painted quoins to the upper floors and band rustication to the ground floor, set on a chamfered plinth. Decorative carved panels sit above the ground-floor openings, and a moulded string course runs between the ground and first floors. Windows are timber-framed sliding sash with projecting painted sills: 3/6 panes to the second floor, and 6/6 panes to the first and ground floors (with horns to the ground-floor windows). The first-floor windows share a continuous sill. Timber casements are used to the rear elevation.

The principal elevation faces north and is four windows wide across the upper floors. At ground floor, slightly right of centre, sits the original raised-and-fielded four-panel timber door, surmounted by a decorative transom light with intersecting semi-circles. This entrance is flanked by grooved pilasters with console brackets and a segmental-headed pediment over. To the left of the entrance are two windows surmounted by a modern fascia; to the right is a modern panelled-and-glazed timber door with an eight-paned sidelight.

The east elevation is abutted to first-floor level by a lower adjoining building. The south (rear) elevation is abutted at the left by the three-storey extension under the cat-slide roof, which has two windows to each floor; to the right there is a window at third-floor level, and the single-storey flat-roof extension abuts the ground floor on the right. The west elevation is abutted by a slightly lower adjoining building.

HISTORY

The building appears on the Townland Valuation town plan for Dromore dating from around 1830, where it was depicted at the centre of a terrace lining the south side of Market Square, with a large rear return giving it a distinct L-shape. At that time it was recorded as the dwelling of a Mr John Martin, valued at £10 10s. Shortly after the valuation was completed, the record was amended when a Mr William Jardine came into possession.

By the time of the second edition Ordnance Survey map (1859) little had changed to the layout of the site, which continued to be shown as an L-shaped building. However, Griffith's Valuation recorded that the building's value had risen to £33 since the 1830s, the increase explained by a number of linen stores Jardine had constructed on the site. William Jardine was a linen manufacturer who established a hemstitching, bleaching and finishing factory at No. 30 Market Square, operating under the name William Jardine & Co. According to Bassett's 1886 directory of County Down, Jardine established the business around 1843 and predominantly manufactured shirt-fronts and handkerchiefs. He owned a number of factories in and around Dromore and employed around 275 women, not including between 50 and 100 staff who worked from home. Jardine leased the Market Square property from a Mr Robert Dickson but did not reside there himself, instead letting Clanmurry House in the nearby townland of Quilly.

By 1864 the Annual Revisions described the site as a house with a linen warehouse, stores and a shirt manufacturing factory. The value was increased to £50 in 1879, though the reason for that particular increase is not recorded. Jardine was recorded as occupant until 1886, when the site passed to a Ms Eliza Jane Jardine — presumably following William Jardine's death around 1885, though no will has been traced. The 1901 Census notes that No. 30 Market Square was unoccupied at that time; Eliza Jane Jardine (aged 59, Unitarian) was residing at Clanmurry with her nephew Charles McCaw Baxter (aged 23), who was employed as factory manager at the Market Square site.

In 1908 a bleaching, printing and dye works was added to the site, raising its value to £75; this was further increased to £80 in 1911 for reasons that are not recorded. A town plan dated 1906 to around 1935 shows that the layout of the site had changed little since the 1830s, still consisting of the three-storey building facing Market Square with a large rear return or adjoining outbuilding. In 1920 Charles Baxter came into possession of the factory while Eliza Jane Jardine continued to reside at Clanmurry House until her death in 1926, at which point her nephew inherited the property. In 1929, by which time the business had passed to Eliza Jane Jardine and Charles McCaw Baxter, the dyeworks factory on the Market Square was destroyed by fire; however, the hemstitching factory was undamaged and no damage appears to have been sustained by the three-storey dwelling. The Baxter family continued to own No. 30 Market Square until at least the 1960s.

According to Rankin, William Jardine was a relative of George Crawford Lindsay (1813–1885), a linen merchant and local magistrate who resided at Moorlands. The Lindsay family originated from Scotland and settled at Tullyhenan in the aftermath of the 1641 Rebellion. During the 18th and 19th centuries they established themselves as one of the most respected and well-connected families in the local linen industry, occupying many of the impressive merchant's manor houses in the area, including Tullyhenan House, Moorlands, Ashfield House and, through William Jardine, Clanmurry House. Doloughan also records that Jardine bleached and dyed yarn at properties on the Lurgan Road, in addition to his operations at Market Square.

Writing in 1969, C. E. B. Brett described No. 30 Market Square as "a pleasant four-bay three-storey stone and stucco house of about 1835." The building was listed in 1977 and has since been converted to office use, currently housing the offices of the Dromore Leader, the town's local newspaper. The current Ordnance Survey map (1973) depicts a number of offices to the rear, though all former outbuildings have been demolished and no trace of the former linen stores or factory remains.

SETTING

The building is street-fronted on the south side of Market Square, directly facing the Town Hall, and sits at the centre of a mainly mid-19th-century terrace. It is accessed to the rear by an alleyway to the west, leading to a communal enclosed rear yard.