44 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.

No.44

This house has a much wider frontage than either of its neighbours, incorporating a large vehicle archway. To the left on the ground floor of the front elevation is the main entrance, with PVC door. To right is a window with PVC frame. To right again is a large vehicle entrance with large timber-sheeted double doors. Above the doors is a semicircular arched tympanum filled with painted timber sheeting with a small window with PVC frame to centre. There is a projecting brick course following the line of the semicircular arch. To the left on the first floor proper is a window as ground floor. The front façade is in painted brick.

To the ground floor of the rear elevation there is PVC door to right and a window with PVC frame to left. Roughly to the centre of the first floor there is another window with PVC frame. To the left of this (above the archway) is a narrower window with a modern frame (this window may belong to no.42]. The rear façade is finished in plain render which is largely painted, however the section above the vehicle arch is unpainted (which could suggest that this portion actually belongs to no.42). A tall rendered wall extends from the rear elevation and abuts a large two storey brick-built outbuilding further to the W. This outbuilding stretches N to enclose a yard at the rear of no.42.

The roof of no.44 is slated and has a central brick chimneystack. The rw goods are a mixture of PVC and cast iron.

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.