Down Arts Centre (former Assembly rooms), 2-8 Irish Street, Downpatrick, Co Down, BT30 6BP

Down Arts Centre, formerly the Assembly Rooms, is a prominent two-storey red brick building in the Venetian Gothic style, constructed in 1882 by architect William Batt. The building occupies the corner of Irish Street and Scotch Street in Downpatrick town centre and is surmounted by a distinctive tall, hipped roof corner clock tower. The property now functions as an arts centre.

The building was commissioned by John Mulholland, the local landlord and Member of Parliament (later Lord Dunleath), and was erected on the site of the former town market house, which dated from 1660. The construction cost £5,000. Originally, the building housed a large assembly room on the first floor, which was made available to townspeople without charge for lectures, concerts, and social meetings. The ground floor contained Mulholland's estate office, a shop (Roden Johnston's Medical Hall), and a minor hall. The assembly rooms served as the town hall until 1945. In 1983, the building was severely damaged by fire. Following restoration in 1988, it was gifted by Lord Dunleath to Down District Council for use as an arts centre.

The west elevation, which is the longer frontage, features a large pointed arch doorway with panelled timber folding doors and a rectangular fanlight, flanked by recessed marble three-quarter column jambs with red sandstone bases and floral capitals. Above this is a sandstone lintel and a carved sandstone panel bearing what appears to be the coat of arms of Downpatrick or the Mulholland family. Immediately to the right is a large, similar opening now filled with modern glazing. Further right are two sets of three tall, narrow pointed arch windows. The leftmost window of this group has recessed three-quarter column jambs entirely in sandstone and was originally a shop doorway; the others were originally much shorter. To the right of these windows is another doorway similar in character to the main entrance, with marble three-quarter column jambs, a panelled door, fanlight, and a carved quatrefoil panel in the tympanum. Above this doorway is a small eyebrow window. All ground floor openings are linked by a moulded string course and feature blue and red brick voussoirs with dentilled archivolts.

The first floor of the west elevation contains five large pointed arch windows with sandstone three-quarter column jambs and timber frames, similarly linked by a string course. Between the second, third, fourth, and fifth windows are carved roundel panels. The second panel bears the monogram of John Mulholland, the landowner responsible for commissioning the building.

The shorter north elevation features a doorway at the far left of the ground floor matching the far right ground floor doorway of the west elevation. To the far right is a tall narrow window opening, originally a doorway. The centre of the ground floor contains two small sash windows with flat arch sandstone heads. The first floor has three large windows: the two outer windows match those of the first floor west elevation, while the central window features two sandstone lights with cusped heads and a quatrefoil in the tympanum. This window sits within a shallow oriel bay supported on brick corbels. Above the window level, the bay narrows to form a gabled half-dormer containing a small window of similar style to the one directly below.

Both the north and west elevations are constructed with three blue brick courses and have a short bevelled base. Part of the base of the west elevation comprises rubble, believed to be a remnant of the original 17th-century market house. The elevations are topped with a bracketed eaves cornice and a balustrade-like parapet. The parapet on the west side is broken by a tall chimney stack with a splayed base. Modern uplighters are attached at first floor sill level, and raised lettering spelling 'Down Arts Centre' has been added to the west elevation. The terraced buildings on Scotch Street and Irish Street abut the building to the immediate east and south. A modernised two-storey gabled building to the immediate east is now integrated internally with the arts centre, though it was originally a separate property.

The clock tower rises from the north-west corner above first floor level. Each face of the tower features a large pointed arch recess with voussoirs, archivolt, and column jambs, below which is a small balcony with balustrade and corbel brackets. Each recess contains two louvered pointed arch openings with large traditional clock faces above. The tower is crowned with a tall pyramidal roof with a slightly splayed base and overhang, supported on brackets with corner corbels. Small gabled dormers appear on each face of the roof, and the structure is topped with a decorative cast iron finial.

The main building roof is hipped and slate-covered, with several small dormer-like ventilation openings on the west side and two small turret ventilators to the ridge. Red clay ridge tiles and cast iron rainwater goods are in place. Following the 1980s fire and subsequent internal rebuilding, some of the ground floor windows to the west were lengthened to create an arcade effect.

A triangular granite milestone, of the type commonly erected following presentment court orders, stands at the north-west corner of the building. The milestone is worn, but 'Castlewellan' and 'Newry', together with an Ordnance Survey benchmark, remain discernible on its south-west face.