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

Down Arts Centre (formerly Assembly Rooms)

A prominent two-storey red brick building in the Venetian gothic style, designed by William Batt and completed in 1882. The building occupies a corner site at the junction of Irish Street and Scotch Street in central Downpatrick. It is crowned by a tall hipped roof with a corner clock tower. The building now serves as an arts centre.

The main entrance is on the west elevation via a large pointed arch doorway on the ground floor. The doorway features a panelled timber folding door with a two-light rectangular fanlight, flanked by recessed marble three-quarter column jambs with tall red sandstone bases and floral capitals. Above is a sandstone lintel, and within the tympanum is a carved sandstone panel bearing a coat of arms, possibly of Downpatrick or John Mulholland. The opening has blue and red brick voussoirs and a dentilled archivolt, a pattern repeated throughout the building.

To the right of the main doorway is a large, similar opening with broader proportions but no column jambs or tympanum, now filled with modern glazing. Further right are two sets of three tall narrow pointed arch windows. The leftmost window has small recessed three-quarter column jambs entirely in sandstone and was originally a shop doorway, while the others were originally much shorter. To the far right of the west elevation is another doorway comparable to the main entrance but with marble three-quarter column jambs and a carved quatrefoil panel in the tympanum. Directly above this doorway is a small eyebrow window. The ground floor openings are linked by a moulded string course.

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 contains the monogram of John Mulholland, Downpatrick's landlord and Member of Parliament, who was responsible for commissioning the assembly rooms.

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

Both the north and west elevations feature three courses of blue brick and a short bevelled base, part of which on the west elevation is in rubble, possibly surviving from a 17th-century market house that previously occupied the site. Both elevations are topped with a bracketed eaves cornice and a balustrade-like parapet above. On the west side, the parapet is broken by a tall chimney stack with splayed base. Modern uplights have been attached at first floor sill level, and raised lettering spelling "Down Arts Centre" appears on the west elevation.

To the east and south, the building is abutted by terraces on Scotch Street and Irish Street. A modernised two-storey gabled building immediately to the east is now integrated internally with the arts centre, though it was originally a separate property.

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

The hipped, slated roof of the main section contains several small dormer-like ventilation openings on the west side and two small turret ventilators on the ridge. Red clay ridge tiles and cast iron rainwater goods are present throughout.

At the north-west corner of the building stands a triangular granite presentment-type milestone. Though weathered, "Castlewellan" and "Newry" and an Ordnance Survey benchmark remain discernible on its south-west face.