18 Main Street, Scarva, Craigavon, Co Down, BT63 6LS

A two-storey four-bay mid-terrace former pair of townhouses, pre-dating 1830, now commercial premises, located on the east side of Main Street in Scarva, north of the village.

The building is of late 18th or early 19th century date, originally lime-rendered. It has a rectangular plan form with a pitched artificial slate roof fitted with clay ridge tiles and uPVC replacement rainwater goods. The walling is painted dashed render with a smooth plinth band and platband. Window and door openings have plain raised reveals. The principal elevation faces west and is asymmetrically arranged, with the entrance door located in the right bay and three windows to the left. The first floor windows are diminished in height and positioned directly over the ground floor openings. A plain platband course marks the first floor level. The building is abutted on the left by 16 Main Street and on the right by 20 Main Street. The rear elevation is not visible. Windows are replacement 1/2 timber casement type, and the door is a modern timber replacement.

The building was originally constructed as two separate dwellings of identical size, presented in a surviving photograph of around 1911 with two distinct entrance doorways. By the early 20th century it remained in use as shop and dwelling. The two houses were subsequently combined into one building sometime before the 1970s survey, at which time a doorway was removed.

The site lies within a continuous terrace running the full length of the east side of Main Street. A heavily vegetated embankment adjoins the rear, with a landscaped public area opposite across which the Newry Canal runs.

The large, numerous windows found in buildings at this end of Main Street would have provided adequate light for hand-loom weavers. Weaving was once an important industry in Scarva; in 1834 there were 38 looms in full work in the village, and the 1901 census records several inhabitants as weavers. The village itself was founded beside the newly-opened Newry Canal in 1746 by John Reilly of Scarva House, with early growth concentrated around the bridge over the canal. The canal, opened in 1742, connected Carlingford Lough with Lough Neagh as a means to transport coal from east Tyrone to Dublin. John Reilly obtained a patent for holding fairs and markets and built a small dock and quay. By the time it appears on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834, the building was listed in the Townland Valuation of 1828-40 alongside neighbours as exempt from valuation due to insufficient value for taxation. In Griffith's Valuation (1856-64) the property was in the ownership of George Chapman, let as two separate dwellings valued at £2 10s with an annual rent of £3 10s, operating as shops with occupiers James Neill and Mary Jane Boyd. Subsequent occupants included John Lowry, Sarah Davis, Margaret Hawthorne, James Robinson, Mrs Lavery, Robert Holland, J Silvany and Jane McMurray in the first house, and Edward McAllister, Francis Gowan and Robert McKeown in the second. At the 1901 census one house was vacant while the other was occupied by Elizabeth Austin, a linen weaver and widow from County Armagh, with six children aged between two months and eleven years, five of whom had been born in Scotland. The building could not be identified in the 1911 census. By the First General Revaluation in 1933-34, occupiers were Robert McKeown and William Murland, with each house revalued at £2 15s. Only the southern dwelling functioned as a shop at this stage, each containing two rooms downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs. Weekly rents were 1s 6d for the shop and house and 2s for the dwelling. The two buildings were sold in 1947 to Samuel Lewis for £200.

The historic character of the building has been substantially degraded by replacement windows and doors. It is not considered a good example of the type and is not of special architectural or historical interest.