42 Meeting Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Group of three small non-identical brick-built terrace houses of 1887 with the middle house incorporating a large vehicle archway, all three now have PVC windows and doors and the position of the ground floor door and window of no.46 recently juxtaposed. The grouping is set within the terrace on the sloping west side of Meeting Street, to the south-east of Dromore town centre.

The front elevation of the grouping faces roughly E, with no.46 on the higher level to the south end.

No.42

To the left on the ground floor of the front elevation of no.42 is the main entrance which has a PVC door. To the right of this is a window with PVC frame, with two similar windows to the first floor. The front façade is in painted brick.

To the rear of the property there is a large two storey flat-roofed extension. The writers could only see the south face of this (which is blank and finished in plain render), but not the other sides or the rest of the rear elevation.

The gabled roof is slated and has a brick chimney stack to N. Cast iron rw goods to front.

Historical information

The second valuation returns of c.1863 tell us that at this point the site of the present nos.44 and 46 was then occupied by a single storey dwelling in the hands of a William Meaney, with part of the site of the present archway and all of that no.42 taken up with an earlier two storey dwelling then home to an Ann English. To the rear of these houses, now largely taken up with the large two storey outbuilding, was ‘McComb’s Court’, with four small dwellings to the west side.

By 1878 two houses within McComb’s Court were ‘in ruins’ and in the 1880s the remaining dwellings appear to have been abandoned. In 1887 what remained of the court and the two dwellings fronting on to Meeting Street were demolished, to be replaced by the present three brick built two storey houses with the large two storey outbuilding built on the site of McComb’s Court. A John Murphy is recorded as the original occupant of no.42, with a George Bennett and William McCann occupying nos.44 and 46 in 1891.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/1B/367 First valuation Dromore Parish, c.1835
2 PRONI VAL/1D/3/13 First valuation town plan of Dromore, c.1835-38
3 PRONI VAL/2B/3/38f Second valuation, Dromore Parish, 1863
4 PRONI VAL/12B/16/10a-f Annual valuation revision books, Dromore Parish, 1864-1898
5 PRONI VAL/12E/122/1/1-9 Valuation town plans of Dromore, 1864-1906
6 PRONI VAL/12B/16/11a-c Annual valuation revision books, Dromore Urban District, 1898-c.1935
7 PRONI VAL/12E/122/3/1-4 Valuation town plans of Dromore, 1906-35

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
H-. Alterations detracting from building
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Group of three small non-identical brick-built terrace houses of 1887 with the middle house incorporating a large vehicle archway. They represent an example of urban vernacular, which is increasingly rare.