Market House is a municipal building in Conway Square,

Newtownards Newtownards is a town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies at the most northern tip of Strangford Lough, 10 miles (16 km) east of Belfast, on the Ards Peninsula. It is in the Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish of Newtownard ...

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 Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

. It 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 by

Robert Stewart, 1st Marquess of Londonderry Robert Stewart, 1st Marquess of Londonderry PC (Ire) (1739–1821), was a County Down landowner, Irish Volunteer, and member of the parliament who, exceptionally for an Ulster Scot and Presbyterian, rose within the ranks of Ireland's "Angli ...

to be the centre of the market town, a role previously undertaken by

Newtownards Priory Newtownards Priory was a medieval Dominican priory founded by the Savage family around 1244 in the village of Newtownards, County Down, Northern Ireland. Only the lower parts of the nave and two blocked doors in the south wall leading to a de ...

. It was designed by Ferdinando Stratford in a Grecian-Doric style and built of Scrabo stone between 1767 and 1771. The design involved a asymmetrical frontage with eleven bays facing Conway Square; the central section, which projected forwards, featured a doorway with a

fanlight A fanlight is a form of lunette window, often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, and is sometimes hinged to a transom. Th ...

on the ground floor, a

Venetian window A Venetian window (also known as a Serlian window) is a large tripartite window which is a key element in Palladian architecture. Although Sebastiano Serlio (1475–1554) did not invent it, the window features largely in the work of the Italian a ...

on the first floor 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 ...

containing a clock above; the wings had arcading on the ground floor and narrow windows on the first floor. Markets were held in the open area on the ground floor: access was from Conway Square through a central archway which was fitted with gates that could be opened and closed at night. There was an assembly room on the first floor of the west wing and a drawing room, now known as the Londonderry Room, on the first floor of the east wing. A tower with a

weathervane A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , m ...

was added in 1778. The market house was held for a week by the

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, ...

travelling to the

Battle of Saintfield The Battle of Saintfield was a short but bloody clash in County Down, in Northern Ireland. The battle was the first major conflict of the Irish Rebellion of 1798 in Down. The battle took place on Saturday, 9 June 1798. Background A rebel force, o ...

during the Rebellion against British rule before the British and loyalist forces recovered control again in June 1798. The events of that conflict, including the action at Newtownards, were immortalised in the novel ''

Betsy Gray Elizabeth "Betsy" Gray (c. 1778 or 1780 - 1798), is a folkloric figure in the annals of 1798 Rebellion in Ireland. Ballads, poems and popular histories celebrate her presence in the ranks of the United Irishmen, and her death, on 12 June 1798 at ...

'' by

Wesley Guard Lyttle Wesley Guard Lyttle (real name Wesley Greenhill Lyttle, pseudonym Robin, 15 April 1844 - 30 October 1896) was an Irish people, Irish newspaper publisher, writer and editor. Life He was born in Newtownards, County Down. He worked as a junior report ...

which was first published in 1887.

Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 6th Marquess of Londonderry Charles Stewart Vane-Tempest-Stewart, 6th Marquess of Londonderry, (16 July 1852 – 8 February 1915), styled Viscount Castlereagh between 1872 and 1884, was a British Conservative politician, landowner and benefactor, who served in various cap ...

gifted the building to the town commissioners in September 1897 in anticipation of the formation of Newtownards Borough Council under the

Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 The Local Government (Ireland) Act 1898 (61 & 62 Vict. c. 37) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland that established a system of local government in Ireland similar to that already created for England, ...

. The arcading on the ground floor was replaced with round-headed windows, to allow the whole building to be used for municipal purposes, in 1903, and it remained in use as the headquarters of Newtownards Borough Council until the early 1970s. Following the implementation of the

Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) 1972 The Local Government (Northern Ireland) Act 1972 (1972 c. 9) was an Act of the Parliament of Northern Ireland that constituted district councils to administer the twenty-six local government districts created by the Local Government (Boundaries) ...

, the newly designated

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 ...

established itself in new council offices in Church Street. The town hall then went through a period of underuse and decline before being refaced with new stonework in 1990 and refurbished internally in 1998. It was then re-opened by the mayor, Alan McDowell, as an arts centre on 24 February 2000.

References

{{Government buildings in Northern Ireland Historic sites in Northern Ireland City and town halls in Northern Ireland Prisons in Northern Ireland Newtownards 1767 in Ireland Arts centres in Northern Ireland

History

See also

References