Old Court House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two storey gabled market house of 1795, somewhat altered over the years and most recently home to a shop. The building is situated on the N side of The Square, in the centre of Ballynahinch, with its W gable facing out into High Street.

The original front façade faces S. To the centre right is a doorway with plain sheeted door with security grill over. To the left of this are three windows of various sizes and with modern frames. The first window (from left) has been enlarged and was originally a doorway. The second is smaller and was originally a doorway also. The third is very small and is undoubtedly a fairly recent insertion. There used to be another doorway to the far right, now blocked up. Internally illuminated PVC sign above windows. To the first floor are four evenly spaced sash windows.

The ‘front’ façade is finished in lined render and painted. It is topped with a parapet in coursed fieldstone rubble and stone coping. In the centre of the parapet is a small gable in which is set a clock face. At either end of the parapet there is a stone pinnacle.

The W gable has had a large shop window and doorway inserted at ground level. Above the shop front is a long internally illuminated PVC sign, with a smaller modern sign board above this. At first floor level there are two very small windows with single pane frames. This gable is finished in lined render and painted.

The E gable is abutted by a house with its exposed section blank and finished in unpainted rough cast.

The rear elevation is obscured by neighbouring properties. A large part of the façade (mainly to the right) is abutted by a shop to the N. The return of this shop appears to cover roughly three-quarters of the façade itself, including the whole of the ground floor level. Only the top left hand (E) quarter appears to be still exposed. This section has a single sash window with vertical glazing bars- two over two, and is finished in unpainted rough cast.

The roof is gabled and covered in natural slate with a stone built chimney stack to each gable. To the centre of the roof ridge is a ‘cupola’ set on a square rendered base, surmounted by curved gables in turn surmounted by an lead sheeted octagonal cap with ball pinnacle. Originally the roof was surmounted by a taller, more graceful cupola with a small dome supported on eight columns, but this was altered in 1957.

Cast iron rw goods. The area immediately in front of the building is covered in tarmac.

Historical information

This building was originally built by Lord Moira in 1795 and served as a market house with the upper storey mainly used as a manor court. The OS memoirs of 1834 reported that the market was held every Thursday and that the building itself had a ‘crane or weighhouse attached’; presumably this was located somewhere at ground floor level. In 1837, Samuel Lewis noted in his ‘Topographical Dictionary of Ireland’ that the building was ‘now dilapidated’, but in 1841 it appears to have been renovated with the cupola and clock apparently added in the process.

The building continued to function as both court and market house into the early 20th century. In 1935, however, it was sold, by the then local landowners, the Ker family, to a local businessman named McCoubrey for £450. Since then the building has been home to a working men’s club (to the upper floor) and a shop (ground floor). The most recent occupants, car parts and bicycle shop, used the upper floor as a store.

Physically, the property has witnessed significant alteration over the years, with the cupola (which was apparently largely made of wood), reduced in height in 1957, and the ground floor openings altered/blocked in the mid to later 1900s. The shop front to the gable was present in 1974 at least and may have been inserted as early as c.1935. The façade has been mainly rendered from the early 1900s at least.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D.1255 Title deeds, legal and testamentary papers, correspondence and Irish Land Commissioners Papers re the Ballynahinch Estate, 1630-1940.
2 PRONI D.272/41 MS map of Ballynahinch by William Byers, c.1790.
3 ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.17: Parishes of County Down IV’, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB1992), p.99.
4 PRONI OS/1/3/22 OS map 1st ed., 1834, Co. Down 22.
5 PRONI VAL/1B/388A-B Valuation records, Magherdrool, 1834-1838.
6 PRONI VAL/1D/3/19 Valuation town plan, Ballynahinch, 1838.
7 Linen Hall Library ‘Belfast News-Letter’ 18 June 1841.
8 PRONI and Linen Hall Library ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory’ Vols.1-21, 1852-1900, (Belfast, Henderson [1852-65], Belfast News-Letter [1865- ]).

Secondary sources
1 S. McCullough ‘Ballynahinch: centre of Down’ (Ballynahinch Chamber of Commerce 1968).
2 C.E.B. Brett ‘Court houses and market houses of Ulster’ (Belfast UAHS 1973), p.65 [This book includes some photographs showing the market house in the early 1900s.]
3 C.E.B. Brett ‘Historic buildings, groups of buildings, areas of architectural importance in the towns and villages of Mid Down’ (Belfast UAHS 1974), p.38, 40-41. [This book includes some photographs showing the market house in the early 1900s.]
4 W.H. Carson ‘Historic clocks of Down “Always five minutes fast since the Squire missed his train”, The Ballynahinch clock’, (?Newspaper article ?c.1975). [Article concerning the history of the clock on the market house parapet.]
5 A.T.Q. Stewart ‘The summer soldiers’ (Belfast 1995), pp.211-229
6 Bill Wilsdon ‘The sites of the 1798 Rising in Antrim and Down’ (Belfast 1997) pp.164-169.
7 W.A. Maguire (ed.) ‘Up in arms: The 1798 Rebellion in Ireland’ (Ulster Museum Publication 1998), pp.244-249.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Two storey market house of 1795, of largely simple design with gabled roof, pinnacled parapet and a squat ‘cupola’- which may date from 1841, but which was reduced in height in 1957. The ground floor openings to the front have been much altered in recent years and a shop front has been inserted on the W gable. The building is abutted to the rear (north) and the east by a shop and a house respectively.