Down Arts Centre

The first municipal building in Downpatrick was a market house which was a gift to the town from Wingfield Cromwell, 2nd Earl of Ardglass and was completed in 1660.[2] It was arcaded on the ground floor, so that markets could be held, with an assembly room on the first floor.[2] After the building became dilapidated in the 1870s, the local member of parliament, John Mulholland, offered to pay for a new building on the same site.[3][4]

The new building was designed by William Batt in the Gothic Revival style, built in red brick by Dixon & Co. and completed in 1882.[3] The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage with five bays facing onto Irish Street; it featured a prominent three-stage clock tower on the corner with Scotch Street; there was an arched doorway on the ground floor of the tower, a gothic window flanked by colonettes on the first floor and a clock face on the second floor. The façade facing Irish Street featured a series of narrow gothic windows on the ground floor and four wider gothic windows flanked by colonettes on the first floor. At roof level there was a modillioned cornice and a central chimney. Internally, there were two halls, the larger hall, located on the first floor, accommodating 800 people and the smaller hall, on the ground floor, accommodating 200 people.[2]

After significant population growth, the area became an urban district with the building as its meeting place in 1925.[2] It was also used as an events venue and the singer, Gracie Fields, performed in the building during the Second World War.[5]

The building continued to serve as the meeting place of Downpatrick Urban District Council for much of the 20th century,[6] but ceased that role after the enlarged Down District Council was formed with offices in Stangford Road in 1974.[7] It was badly damaged in a fire in 1983 but was restored in 1984: it was then converted for use as the Down Arts Centre in 1989[8] and the local rock band, Ash, held one of their earliest performances there in the 1990s.[5] A programme of refurbishment works costing £1.4 million supported by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Tourism Northern Ireland and Down District Council started in February 2011.[9] The works, which were undertaken to a design by Kriterion Architects, included modernisation of the facilities as well as the creation of some additional creative space and were completed in June 2012.[10][11]