Donaghadee Town Hall, also known as The Merchant House, is a municipal structure in the High Street, Donaghadee,

County Down County Down () is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, one of the nine counties of Ulster and one of the traditional thirty-two counties of Ireland. It covers an area of and has a population of 531,665. It borders County Antrim to the ...

, Northern Ireland. The structure, which has been converted for residential use, is a Grade B+

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 as a private house: it was designed in the

Georgian style Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four Monarchy of the United Kingdom, British monarchs of the House of Hano ...

, built in greywacke stone and was completed in around 1770. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto the High Street; the central bay featured a doorway flanked by pedestals with

Ionic order The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite or ...

columns supporting an

entablature An entablature (; nativization of Italian , from "in" and "table") is the superstructure of moldings and bands which lies horizontally above columns, resting on their capitals. Entablatures are major elements of classical architecture, and ...

and a

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 ...

. The other bays on the ground floor and all the bays on the first floor were fenestrated by twelve-pane

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 whilst the windows on the second floor were fenestrated by six-pane sash windows. At roof level, there was a

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...

and a

hip roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...

. By the 1830s, the house was owned by a

muslin Muslin () is a cotton fabric of plain weave. It is made in a wide range of weights from delicate sheers to coarse sheeting. It gets its name from the city of Mosul, Iraq, where it was first manufactured. Muslin of uncommonly delicate handsp ...

merchant, Samuel Cochrane, who imported his goods through Donaghadee Harbour. After a local resident, Mrs McCready, was murdered by her husband in 1852, the lane adjacent to the building became known as Murder Lane. The building was bought the Pritchard family for use as a boarding house in 1914 and was then acquired by Donaghadee Urban District Council in the mid-20th century. The council, which had previously been based elsewhere in the High Street, then relocated its officers and their departments into the building. It continued to serve as the headquarters of the council for several decades, but ceased to be the local seat of government when the enlarged

Ards Borough Council Ards Borough Council was the local authority of Ards in Northern Ireland. It merged with North Down Borough Council in May 2015 under local government reorganisation in Northern Ireland to become North Down and Ards District Council North i ...

was formed in 1973. The building was then used by the council as workspace for the delivery of local services, including the implementation of a local employment scheme in the late 20th century. However, it fell vacant in the early 21st century, and, after its condition subsequently deteriorated, it was acquired by a developer, Michael Dunlop of Urban Property Solutions, in 2017. An extensive programme of works costing £1.9 million, which involved the removal of the cement render on the front of the building, the restoration of the stonework and the conversion of the interior into five private apartments, as well as the construction of four mews cottages in the courtyard behind, was completed in 2021.

References

{{Government buildings in Northern Ireland Government buildings completed in 1770 City and town halls in Northern Ireland Grade B+ listed buildings Donaghadee