Ballynahinch Market House, formerly known as Ballynahinch Court House
[ and as Ballynahinch Town Hall,]listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
.
History
The building was commissioned by the Earl of Moira, whose seat was at Moira Castle, as a covered market for the local people.[ The foundation stone for the new building was laid by representatives of the local masonic lodge on 2 July 1792. It was designed in the neoclassical style, built in ]rubble masonry
Rubble stone is rough, uneven building stone not laid in regular courses. It may fill the core of a wall which is faced with unit masonry such as brick or ashlar. Analogously, some medieval cathedral walls are outer shells of ashlar with an inn ...
and was completed in 1795.[ The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with four bays facing onto the Market Square; it was arcaded on the ground floor, so that markets could be held, with an assembly room on the first floor. There were four irregular openings with on the ground floor and four ]sash window
A sash window or hung sash window is made of one or more movable panels, or "sashes". The individual sashes are traditionally paned window (architecture), paned windows, but can now contain an individual sheet (or sheets, in the case of double gla ...
s with window cill
A windowsill (also written window sill or window-sill, and less frequently in British English, cill) is the horizontal structure or surface at the bottom of a window. Window sills serve to structurally support and hold the window in place.
The ...
s on the first floor. At roof level, there was a parapet
A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...
, a central pediment
Pediments are gables, usually of a triangular shape.
Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the lintel, or entablature, if supported by columns. Pediments can contain an overdoor and are usually topped by hood moulds.
A pedimen ...
and pinnacle
A pinnacle is an architectural element originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. It was mainly ...
s at each end.[
In June 1798, a group of ]United Irishmen
The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association in the Kingdom of Ireland formed in the wake of the French Revolution to secure "an equal representation of all the people" in a national government. Despairing of constitutional reform, ...
, led by Henro Munro, were exposed to a barrage of musketry and artillery fire outside the building in the Market Square in what became known as the Battle of Ballynahinch
The battle of Ballynahinch was a military engagement of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 between a force of roughly 4,000 United Irishmen rebels led by Henry Munro and approximately 2,000 government troops under the command of George Nugent. After ...
. Munro was subsequently taken to Lisburn
Lisburn (; ) is a city in Northern Ireland. It is southwest of Belfast city centre, on the River Lagan, which forms the boundary between County Antrim and County Down. First laid out in the 17th century by English and Welsh settlers, with ...
where he was tried and hanged. In 1802, the building, together with much of the town, was acquired by David Ker, who came to Ballynahinch to "take the waters" from the local medicinal springs. By the 1830s, the building had become dilapidated; it was refurbished in 1841, when a central cupola
In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome.
The word derives, via Italian, from ...
, in the form of eight columns on a square base supporting a dome
A dome () is an architectural element similar to the hollow upper half of a sphere. There is significant overlap with the term cupola, which may also refer to a dome or a structure on top of a dome. The precise definition of a dome has been a m ...
, was installed on the roof and a clock, made by James Scott and Sons, was installed in the central pediment.[
The assembly room was used as a court room for ]petty session
Courts of petty session, established from around the 1730s, were local courts consisting of magistrates, held for each petty sessional division (usually based on the county divisions known as hundreds) in England, Wales, and Ireland. The session ...
hearings throughout the 19th century and it was also used as a classroom for lessons in science and technology in the late 19th century.[
In May 1935, the Ker family sold the building to William James McCoubrey, who was a local businessman and chairman of ]Down County Council
Down County Council was the authority responsible for local government in County Down, Northern Ireland.
History
Down County Council was formed under orders issued in accordance with the Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 which came into effect ...
. McCoubrey converted the ground floor of the building for retail use and the first floor for use as a working men's club. In 1957, he replaced the cupola with a small pyramid
A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...
-shaped spire
A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...
and he subsequently infilled the openings at the front of the building with glazing.[
In January 2001, a group of local people, the Ballynahinch Regeneration Committee, acquired the building from the McCoubrey family. An extensive programme of refurbishment works, which involved the removal of cement render from the front building, establishing regular openings with ]voussoir
A voussoir () is a wedge-shaped element, typically a stone, which is used in building an arch or vault.
Although each unit in an arch or vault is a voussoir, two units are of distinct functional importance: the keystone and the springer. The ...
s on the ground floor and the restoration of the cupola in the original style, was completed in 2002. Down District Council
Down District Council was a Local Council in County Down in Northern Ireland. It merged with Newry and Mourne District Council in April 2015 under local government reorganisation in Northern Ireland to become Newry, Mourne and Down District Cou ...
then acquired the building for use as a community events venue in August 2010.
References
{{Government buildings in Northern Ireland
Government buildings completed in 1795
City and town halls in Northern Ireland
Grade B1 listed buildings
Civil parish of Magheradrool