82 Church Street, Dromore, Banbridge, Co Down, BT25 1AA

82 Church Street is a two-bay, two-storey attached house built around 1860, situated on the north side of Church Street to the west of Dromore town centre. It was originally constructed as part of a single substantial dwelling together with the adjoining No. 80, the two properties together forming a pair of early Victorian town houses under a single roof. The house was subdivided into two separate dwellings during the mid-20th century. Of the two, No. 82 has lost more of its original historic fabric through inappropriate extensions and loss of internal material during the subdivision process.

The building has a rectangular plan with a two-storey canted bay to the south elevation. Later additions include a single-storey entrance porch to the west and a two-storey flat-roof extension with a single-storey porch to the rear. The roof is hipped and covered in natural slate with leaded ridges; the chimneystacks are red brick with clay pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are carried on bracketed timber eaves. The external walls are painted smooth render on a contrasting plinth with raised quoins.

The windows are 2-over-2 timber-framed sashes with projecting painted sills. The canted bay features chamfered surrounds and a keyblock at first-floor level, with decorative pilaster jambs to the ground floor rising from a continuous corbelled sill course.

The principal elevation faces south. The original entrance to the combined house has been incorporated into No. 80 and features a timber verandah on slender cast-iron columns with ornate spandrel brackets and a balustrade. To the left of this entrance, the two-storey canted bay and the far left bay — each with two windows at both ground and first floor — form the southern face of No. 82. The west elevation, which now serves as the entrance to No. 82, has a window and a single-storey flat-roof entrance porch at ground floor, and two diminutive windows at first floor. The rear (north) elevation of No. 82 has a two-storey flat-roof extension with two timber casement windows at both ground and first floor. The right bay has a window at first floor and a single-storey flat-roof porch set into the re-entrant angle.

The house is set in a suburban location on the outskirts of the town, set back from the road with a lawned front garden and mature trees at the entrance. The boundary to the road is formed by a rendered plinth wall with hedgerow and square gate piers with pointed caps supporting metal gates. The rear garden is raised and set on a slope. A Victorian ice-house with an arched timber-sheeted door stands to the west, along with a modern detached garage. A modern two-storey house attached to the east gable of No. 80 detracts from the quality of the setting.

The site has a well-documented history. Early maps — including the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833 and the Townland Valuation map of around 1830 — show that an earlier dwelling occupied approximately the same footprint as the current structure. At that time the property belonged to a Mrs Elizabeth Stephenson and was valued at £22. By the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1859 little had changed in the site layout, but Griffith's Valuation of 1861 records the property in the possession of a Mr John Harrison Jnr, by which point the value had risen to £56, suggesting the current Victorian house had been built at least by that date. Harrison held the property from the Trustees of the Dromore Diocesan and Widows Fund; his holdings also included a shirt-front factory to the south-east of the dwelling, which was demolished sometime after the 1973 Ordnance Survey map, the last edition to depict it.

Between 1864 and 1878 — a period for which valuation records are missing — the value of the site increased substantially to £135, reflecting John Harrison's construction of a large hemstitching factory to the north-east of the house. According to Bassett's Directory of County Down (1886), Harrison was a Justice of the Peace for County Down and his residence, then known as Mariville, adjoined the factory grounds. Bassett records that Harrison established the hemstitching factory around 1871, where tamboring, hemming, and finishing of cotton handkerchiefs were carried out for leading commission and shipping houses in Manchester, Glasgow, and Belfast, employing approximately 350 workers — the majority of them from the town — who were paid by the item.

John Harrison continued to reside at Mariville until around 1895. The property was unoccupied until 1897, when Dr Marshall Weir, a surgeon, came into possession after his former residence was purchased by the Cathedral Church of Christ the Redeemer and became that church's Rectory. Weir did not take on the former hemstitching factory, and as a result the site was split in valuation terms in 1895, with Mariville revalued at £50. The 1901 Census records Weir (aged 70, Church of Ireland) residing at Mariville with his wife Jane (aged 68) and their four adult daughters. The census building return described Mariville as a first-class dwelling of 13 rooms, with a stable, a turf house, and a fowl house as its outbuildings. Marshall Weir died in 1903 and the house stood vacant until 1909, when a Mr David James Spence took possession. Spence (aged 45, Methodist) is recorded in the 1911 Census as a linen merchant, residing at Mariville with his wife Adelaide (aged 40) and their two infant children. When Spence took possession in 1909 the valuation was reduced to £30. The Spence family remained until 1923, after which the property passed through a number of tenants in relatively quick succession until the end of the Annual Revisions record in 1930.

Mariville House was converted into two separate dwellings during the mid-20th century. No. 82 comprises the western two bays of the original house and is now accessed via the porch added to the west gable. Writing in 1974, C. E. B. Brett described the combined building as "a good pair of large early Victorian stucco two-storey houses under a single hipped roof; eleven bays in all; canted bay windows linked by a balcony carried on iron columns with arches and curly detailing." Nos. 80–82 were listed in 1977. John Harrison's former hemstitching factory to the north-east of the site was demolished after 1973 to make way for the creation of the adjoining street, Church View.