Town Hall, Market Square, Dromore, Banbridge, Co Down, BT25 1AW

Dromore Town Hall and Former Market House

This free-standing two-storey red-brick former market house, now serving as the Town Hall, was built in 1886 and stands prominently at the centre of Market Square in the heart of Dromore town centre. It is considered one of the last market houses to have been built in Ireland, and replaced an earlier Georgian market building erected on the same spot in 1732. The builder contracted to carry out the work was a Mr J. H. Burns, as recorded in the Irish Builder (1 April 1886), which reported the proposed construction cost as £854; the architect is not known. The building is of local government ownership and lies within a conservation area.

Architectural Description

The building has an L-shaped plan — a form it acquired when a sympathetic two-storey extension was added at some point before 1973, giving it its current layout. The roof is pitched and finished with natural slate, with plain bargeboards to the gables. A red-brick chimneystack rises from the north gable. The south gable carries a square timber clock tower with a pedimented roof surmounted by a weathervane. Rainwater goods were concealed behind scaffolding at the time of survey.

The walls are built in Flemish-bonded red brick on a chamfered plinth, with brick string-courses running between the two floors. Windows are generally timber-boarded and mostly round-headed, with brick label moulds and projecting stone sills. The south elevation features a variety of round-headed timber-framed sliding sash windows.

The principal elevation faces south. The gabled front is three windows wide, with a glazed oculus and a round-headed multi-paned window at mid-level to the centre, flanked by a window to the first floor on either side. At ground floor level there are two sets of double-leaf bolection-moulded two-panel timber doors to the left and right, each surmounted by transom lights and hood moulds, with a narrow window opening to the left of centre.

The west elevation has a projecting gabled bay to the left and a wider right bay. The north elevation has a gabled bay to the left with two round-headed windows at first floor level; at ground floor right there is a multi-paned round-headed window and a double-leaf timber door with louvred vents. The right bay of the north elevation is flush with the gable and has a round-headed window at first floor centre, with two six-panelled timber doors with segmental-headed transom lights at ground floor level. The east elevation is five windows wide at first floor level; the ground floor was concealed by scaffolding at the time of survey.

The Clock Tower

The wooden pedimented cupola houses a four-faced clock. The clock was installed in 1891 as a gift to the people of Dromore from Mr William Cowan Heron, who resided at Altafort in Skeagh and also founded the Cowan Heron Hospital. The cupola was probably modelled on the one atop Banbridge's market house on Bridge Street, as noted by the architectural historian C. E. B. Brett, who described it as "hardly appropriate, but very attractive." In the mid-1970s, repairs were carried out to the clock mechanism after a discrepancy was noticed between the times displayed on the four faces.

Setting

The building sits on a large paved plinth at the centre of Market Square, surrounded on four sides by terraced commercial premises largely dating from the early to mid-19th century. To the west is a tarmacadam parking area containing a cast-iron weighbridge inscribed with the name "Avery." The town stocks are located at the south wall of the building. The listing extends to cover both the town hall and the weighbridge.

Historical Background

A market house occupied this site before the current building. The first and second edition Ordnance Survey maps (1833 and 1859) depict a rectangular structure on the same position. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1837 described it as "the court house, with a market place underneath, situated in Market Square — a very plain and dirty looking building, 50 feet long and 35 feet broad," with attached shambles. Samuel Lewis, also writing in 1837, noted that the town's Saturday market was "well supplied with all sorts of provisions, farming stock, and linen." The Townland Valuations of the 1830s valued the original market house at £10.

By the time of Griffith's Valuation (1861), the site had been assessed in two parts: the market house and its tolls were valued at £12, while the petty sessions house — where local magistrates sat — was exempt from valuation for tax purposes but rated at £6. A detailed valuation map of approximately 1861 also records that the town stocks, which adjoin the current building, stood alongside the original market house before its demolition; at that time they were located on the west side but were relocated when the new structure was built.

With the construction of the new market house in 1886, the value of the site rose to £100 — £40 for the building itself and £60 for the market tolls. Annual revision records note that the building was administered by the Town Commissioners of Dromore. The third edition Ordnance Survey map confirms that the new market house was built as a rectangular structure on the exact footprint of its predecessor.

It is not definitively known why the original Georgian building was replaced, though its poor condition — already noted in 1837 — and possible inadequacy for magisterial or commercial purposes are likely factors. The architectural historian Crosbie suggested that the new building was erected to enliven Market Square, noting that "Victorian town planners were not always conservationists or improvers" of earlier buildings. Brett, writing in 1973, described the result as "a most curiously anachronistic building, Georgian in spirit and design, late Victorian in execution, texture and materials."

The adjoining town stocks were remounted at the south side of the market house in December 1910 and have remained there since. Photographs from the turn of the century and the fourth edition Ordnance Survey map (1919–20) show little discernible alteration to the building in the early 20th century.

Throughout its history the building has served as a commercial space, a workplace for local magistrates, and a venue for public functions. From the 1930s until the mid-1970s it also frequently served as Dromore's main cinema. The building was listed in 1977. In recent years it has been converted into the town's public library, although at the time of survey the town hall was undergoing a programme of restoration, after which the library was to resume its occupation.