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 Newtow ...

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 552,261. It borders County Antrim to the ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

. It is a Grade B+

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

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 Irish Parliament who, exceptionally for an Ulster Scot and Presbyterian, rose within the ranks of Ireland's ...

to be the centre of the market town, a role previously undertaken by Newtownards Priory. 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 (transom window), often semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing (window), glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open Hand fan, fan. It is placed over another window or a doorway, ...

on the ground floor, a Venetian window on the first floor and a

pediment Pediments are a form of gable in classical architecture, usually of a triangular shape. Pediments are placed above the horizontal structure of the cornice (an elaborated lintel), or entablature if supported by columns.Summerson, 130 In an ...

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 list of weather instruments, instrument used for showing the wind direction, direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ' ...

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

United Irishmen The Society of United Irishmen was a sworn association, formed in the wake of the French Revolution, to secure Representative democracy, representative government in Ireland. Despairing of constitutional reform, and in defiance both of British ...

rebels travelling to Saintfield during the

Irish Rebellion of 1798 The Irish Rebellion of 1798 (; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ''The Turn out'', ''The Hurries'', 1798 Rebellion) was a popular insurrection against the British Crown in what was then the separate, but subordinate, Kingdom of Ireland. The m ...

before government troops 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 the 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 179 ...

'' by Wesley Guard Lyttle 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 ca ...

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 Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots diale ...

. 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 (c. 9 (N.I.)) 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 (Bounda ...

, 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. Members ...

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

{{City and town halls in 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 Market houses

History

See also

References