36 Church Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A symmetrical three-bay two-storey terraced red-brick hall, now apartments, with decorative brickwork; built c.1890 as living accommodation for the cathedral sexton, and situated to the north side of Church Street in Dromore town centre. Rectangular plan with recessed arcaded ground floor and two-storey flat-roof return with single-storey porch to rear.

Pitched natural slate roof with blue/black angled ridge tiles and tall red-brick chimneystacks; plain timber bargeboards to gable; timber fascia at gable eaves level. Plastic rainwater goods on projecting timber eaves with exposed rafter tails; cast-iron downpipes, cast-iron half-round guttering to rear. Walling is English garden wall-bonded red-brick on a red-brick plinth with decorative toothed and herringbone patterned brickwork to gable; lugged impost mouldings and chamfered edges to arcaded openings; smooth render to rear. Windows are five-paned timber-framed side-hung casements; square-headed in timber architraves to first floor with moulded sill course and segmental-headed with chamfered (partially) tiled sills to ground floor. Replacement timber casements and uPVC to rear.

The principal elevation faces south and has central gable with two windows at first floor. Arcaded arrangement to ground floor with semi-circular headed opening containing doorway flanked by elliptical-headed openings.

The west gable is almost entirely abutted by narrow modern red-brick slated infill which is abutted by adjoining late-twentieth century two-storey terraced house.

The north (rear) elevation has a window to each floor at left and right, modern timber door to ground floor left; abutted at centre by a two-storey flat-roof return with single-storey flat-roof porch to re-entrant angle, accessed by a modern timber door.

The east gable is abutted by adjoining building.

Setting

Street-fronted with small enclosed garden to rear, now forming part of a mainly late-twentieth century terrace of two-storey rendered houses. Situated directly opposite Cathedral Church of Christ the Redeemer (HB17/15/022A) and to west of the Rectory (HB17/15/022B). The rear is accessed via Church View, a modern courtyard housing development; yard to rear enclosed by modern timber gate and original detached slated red-brick garage with timber-sheeted doors.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: brick
Windows: timber
RWG: uPVC & cast-iron

Historical information

36 Church Street is situated opposite Dromore Cathedral Church and was built c1890 as living accommodation for the cathedral sexton. Although the house shows some stylistic echoes of work done elsewhere in the Banbridge area by Henry Hobart, the building is very much of its era and a firm attribution cannot be made.

Structures are shown on the site on the first edition OS map of 1833. However the present building first enters valuation records in 1891 as the home of Robert Faulkner, a house and yard, valued at £10 and let from George Brush, agent to the Third Earl of Clanwilliam. Also on the plot is a building to the rear of the house (still present) which was Brush’s rent office. The house passed to William Guiney in 1893 and then to Joseph Flanagan in 1911.

William Guiney was the sexton of Dromore Cathedral. In 1901 he was 61 and lived in the four-room house with his wife and three adult daughters, two of whom worked as hemstitchers and the third as a dressmaker. The designation of the building was second class. The next sexton was Joseph Flanagan who lived with his wife and five children ranging from 7 years old to 17. The eldest girl was a hemstitcher and her 15-year-old brother a message boy. Valuation records of the 1930s record that the house was held rent free by virtue of the occupant’s office as Sexton of Dromore Cathedral. The Cathedral Trustees were, by this time, the owners of the building. Accommodation comprised four bedrooms, a parlour and kitchen and the former rent office at the rear was now used as a store for extra church pews. Subsequent occupiers were Frederick McMurray (1952) and Edward Monk (1964).

The building was altered in the course of conversion to apartments c1980 and slightly extended to west and east. The most eastern of the ground floor arches was an open carriage arch when originally built (see town plan) and this has since been filled in to increase the living accommodation inside.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/21/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey map 1903
2. PRONI OS/6/3/21/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey map 1919-20
3. PRONI VAL/12/E/122/1/5 Dromore Town Plan
4. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/10A –C Annual Revisions 1864-1898
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/11A –C – Annual Revisions 1899-1930
6. PRONI VAL/3/C/4/17 First General Revaluation (1933-56)
7. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/8/A/3 First General Revaluation (1933-56)
8. PRONI VAL/4/B/3/32 Second General Revaluation (1956-72)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A symmetrical three-bay two-storey terraced red-brick hall, now apartments; built c.1890 as accommodation for the Cathedral sexton. Some detailing survives, including decorative toothed and herringbone patterned brickwork much associated with the Victorian style. However, extensive alteration, including replacement fenestration and entrance door, revised floor plan, and a refurbished interior, have compromised its interest and it is not of special merit.