Gray's Stationery Shop (and Printing Presses), 49 Main Street, Strabane, Co. Tyrone, BT82 8AU

Gray's Stationery Shop (and Printing Presses), 49 Main Street, Strabane, Co. Tyrone

Gray's Printing Shop is an asymmetrical two-bay, two-storey shop and house with an attic, built around 1780 on the north side of Main Street, Strabane. It is one of the most significant buildings in Strabane, combining a rare and early surviving shopfront with a remarkable collection of historic printing equipment, and carrying well-known — if not always verifiable — connections to figures of American historical importance.

Form and Exterior

The building is generally rectangular but irregular on plan, facing south. It has a single-storey flat-roofed bowed shopfront to the south, a later hipped single-storey extension to the north, and a multi-bay two-storey single-pitched addition. The roof is pitched natural slate with blue-black angled clay ridge tiles, half-round cast-iron gutters, and modern rooflights. The walls are finished in painted roughcast. Windows throughout are painted timber 6/6 sashes with smooth-rendered reveals and no sills.

The principal elevation faces west. At the right is the bowed shopfront, which is one of the oldest surviving traditional shopfronts in Ireland and probably dates from the late 18th century. Scholar Sean Rothery has noted that its slightly curved front is typical of the 18th-century double bow-fronted shops once abundant in London and Dublin during the Georgian period, and that the timber arrangement of cornice, nameboard, and many-paned windows is characteristic of the earliest shopfronts. The shopfront has a moulded fascia with a plain frieze into which the words "GRAY, PRINTER" are fixed in timber letters. Bowed multi-pane windows over rendered aprons flank the entrance, all separated by elongated painted timber columns. The entrance door has two lower bolection-moulded panels with glazed upper panels and decorative glazing bars. There is a decorative transom above the door and a modern overlight painted with the words "ESTABLISHED 1760." A National Trust plaque reading "NATIONAL TRUST / GRAY'S PRINTERY" is affixed to the right of the principal elevation.

To the left of the shopfront on the ground floor are two doors: a four-panelled door to the right and a modern eight-panelled door to the left. The first floor has four windows — a 4/4 sash to the left and two 6/6 sashes closely spaced in a recess to the right.

The north elevation is entirely abutted by the adjoining building. The rear (east) elevation projects to the left in an irregular plan. The right bay is two-storey with a gabled attic and a replacement timber vertically-sheeted door. There is a variety of sash windows including 4/4 and 2/2 vertically aligned, and a 9/6 sash to a canted cheek, with small modern casements to the ground floor right. The addition is detailed in the same manner as the main block and has a door to each cheek. The south elevation is entirely abutted by the adjoining building.

Setting and Outbuilding

The building sits on the north side of Main Street near the former location of the town hall to the east and the bridge to the southeast. To the rear is a courtyard enclosed by a two-storey rectangular-plan outbuilding to the east, which has whitewashed stone walls, a pitched slate roof, painted timber doors, and sliding sash windows. The listing covers both the shop and this rear outbuilding.

Interior and Printing Equipment

The shop contains several historic printing presses. The Columbian Press was invented around 1813 by George Clymer of Philadelphia and brought to England in 1817. The Albion Press was invented around 1822 by R. W. Cope. Both the Columbian and the Albion were used commercially well into the 20th century. There are also three Platen Presses, built from 1856 by the American George P. Gordon as a small, fast, and versatile press.

In addition to the presses, the shop contains a hand-operated guillotine, a perforator, a stapling machine, a lead cutter, and a substantial supply of type in both wood and metal. Some of the older typefaces are named Pica, Brevier, and Long Primer — names indicating they were produced before the adoption of the point system in 1886. Wall racks carry a wide selection of wood letter used in poster printing.

History and Historical Connections

The building is likely to date from the late 18th century. It is not clear when it became a printer's shop, and no primary evidence has been found to support the date of 1760 engraved in glass over the doorway. According to Dix, the printing industry began in Strabane around 1770, but no printer by the name of Gray has been documented until the 19th century. The shop appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833. Griffith's Valuation records a house, offices, and yard on the site, occupied by John Gray and leased from Catherine Cowan, with a valuation of £26. The Valuation Revisions covering 1860 to 1931 record a "house, printing offices and yard" leased from Catherine E. Cowan and occupied by Elizabeth Gray. The fieldbook dating from 1864 to 1873 records the addition of further printing offices.

The National Trust Committee for Northern Ireland restored Gray's Stationery Shop in the mid-20th century, describing it as "a remarkable survival from an epoch when Strabane was an important publishing centre in the North of Ireland," noting that at one period in the 18th century there were no fewer than ten printing concerns in the town, and that several of Strabane's citizens carried on successful businesses as printers and publishers in America and the British colonies.

The shop is traditionally connected with two Americans of note. The first is John Dunlap, printer of the first daily American newspaper and of the American Declaration of Independence. Dunlap was born in Strabane in 1746 and emigrated to Philadelphia ten years later to join his uncle William, who was already established there as a printer and bookseller. John took over the business in 1766, and in 1771 published The Pennsylvania Packet or The General Advertiser, a weekly newspaper that became the first American daily paper on 21st September 1784 and is now incorporated in the Public Ledger of Philadelphia. He was appointed printer to the Continental Congress in 1773 and printed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Tradition holds that Dunlap served his apprenticeship at this shop; however, since he left Strabane before the printing industry was established there, this connection appears unlikely. The second connection is to James Wilson, grandfather of Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States (serving 1912 to 1920), who is also believed to have served his apprenticeship at the shop, though again this requires further supporting evidence.