Tyrella House, 5 Church Street, Banbridge, Co Down, BT32 4AA

Tyrella House is a symmetrical three-storey, three-bay late-Georgian terraced house built around 1800, located on the north side of Church Street in Banbridge town centre. Now in use as offices, it retains its Georgian proportions and much of its original architectural detail, though some historic fabric has been lost through the change of use.

The building is square on plan. To the rear there is a two-storey return and a single-storey flat-roof extension, and a two-storey former stable block abuts the return at a right angle, enclosing a central yard. The roof is pitched natural slate with raised verges and rendered chimneystacks carrying tall terracotta pots. The eaves project and carry cast-iron ogee-profile rainwater goods. The external walls are finished in ruled-and-lined render over a smooth rendered plinth.

The windows are timber sliding sashes throughout: 9/3 pane to the second floor and 3/9 pane to the first and ground floors, all fitted with horns and projecting sills. The principal elevation faces southwest and is symmetrically arranged with three openings to each floor. At ground-floor centre there is an open porch with square panelled piers and a plain entablature, surmounted by a parapet with balustrade. The doorcase consists of a replacement four-panelled timber door flanked by four-paned sidelights and surmounted by a timber fanlight. The northwest elevation is obscured by the adjoining building. The northeast (rear) elevation has a 6/6 casement window at second-floor centre and two windows to the right at first floor; to the left it is abutted by a two-storey return with modern glazing to the northwest elevation, and to the ground-floor right by the single-storey flat-roof extension, which has two multi-paned timber casement windows. The southeast elevation is blank and partially abutted by the adjoining building.

The open porch does not appear in Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64, which suggests it was added as a later Victorian improvement. A photograph of 1911 shows the facade little changed from its current appearance, apart from the subsequent removal of railings in front of the house and a slight alteration to the ground-floor windows, which were formerly 6/6 pane. The First General Revaluation of the early 1930s records that the ground floor contained a square hall, surgery, and reception to the front, a back sitting room, kitchen, scullery, and storeroom. The first floor had a bathroom with bath, lavatory, and WC, two front bedrooms, and a small dressing room, with a further bedroom over the kitchen. The top floor contained three bedrooms and a dressing room. At that time, the house was noted as old and in poor general repair.

The former stable block to the rear has been converted and its fenestration replaced. Beyond it lies a yard enclosed by a masonry wall topped by a modern timber fence, which is overlooked by a large three-storey modern apartment block.

The house takes its name from the Tyrrell family, its early owners, who remained in residence for upwards of a century. The Townland Valuation of 1828–40 records the house at a valuation of £18, describing it as 22 feet high with a two-storey return and three outbuildings, occupied by George Tyrrell. By the time of Griffith's Valuation (1856–64), Tyrrell is recorded as a medical doctor, the house is leased from the Marquess of Downshire, and the valuation had risen to £30 10s. The house is described as stone-finished and oil-painted. George Tyrrell, who had also served as County Coroner and was the subject of a satirical poem in 1831 by Joseph Carson aimed at 'some of the doctors of B-b-ge', died on 5th May 1868, leaving the house to his daughters. In 1870 it passed to the Misses Tyrrell, later named as Maria Tyrrell and her sisters. The 1901 census records 84-year-old Maria living with her sisters Jane and Anna, a niece from Wexford, and a domestic servant born in Liverpool. By 1911, remarkably, all three sisters were still in residence at the ages of 95, 90, and 80, along with their niece Beata Wahab Sutherland and a servant. Beata Sutherland died in 1916 and no record survives of the three sisters' deaths. By 1920 the house had passed out of the Tyrrell family to William A. Potts, veterinary surgeon, and subsequent occupants included John W. Harshaw (recorded 1940) and Kathleen McShane. The building is now in use as offices.

The house stands street-fronted, forming part of an early 19th-century terrace directly opposite Seapatrick Parish Church. It forms a terrace with Nos. 6 and 7 Church Street, and together with the wider group of buildings at Nos. 1–7 Church Street, represents some of the earliest professional-class development in Banbridge. The terrace as a whole, built up between around 1800 and around 1865 around a core of simpler earlier buildings, reflects the boom in the town's fortunes brought by the growth of a worldwide linen trade. Banbridge had grown rapidly as a linen centre following the construction of a new bridge across the River Bann in 1712, and by 1744 held the largest linen cloth fairs in County Down. The town was then the property of Wills Hill, Earl of Hillsborough, who laid out the streets and encouraged building by granting plots at nominal rents in perpetuity, along with small farms known as 'town parks' on the outskirts. By the early 19th century, the Church Street terrace had become one of Banbridge's most desirable addresses, earning a reputation as the town's equivalent of a professional quarter, housing doctors, dentists, and a vet — a tradition continued today through its use as offices for professional occupants.

A 1703 map of the Bann Crossing shows a single-storey three-bay dwelling in the vicinity of the current terrace, which may have been the first building on the site. Buildings appear on maps of 1755 and 1771 and on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833, though gaps in the terrace remain at that stage and valuation records confirm that some buildings were subsequently rebuilt or remodelled. Field inspection confirms that the current house, though remodelled, dates from around 1800.