Donaghadee Town Hall facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Donaghadee Town Hall |
|
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg)
Donaghadee Town Hall
|
|
| Location | High Street, Donaghadee |
| Built | c.1770 |
| Architectural style(s) | Georgian style |
|
Listed Building – Grade B+
|
|
| Official name: Former Town Hall, 24 High Street, Donaghadee, County Down | |
| Designated | 20 December 1976 |
| Reference no. | HB 24/07/004 |
| Lua error in Module:Location_map at line 420: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value). | |
Donaghadee Town Hall, also known as The Merchant House, is an important building on High Street in Donaghadee, County Down, Northern Ireland. It used to be a town hall but has now been turned into homes. This building is so special that it's protected as a Grade B+ listed building.
Contents
History of Donaghadee Town Hall
Building a Grand Home
The building was first built as a large private house around 1770. It was designed in the beautiful Georgian style. The house was made from a type of stone called greywacke.
It had a balanced front with five sections facing High Street. The middle section had a fancy doorway. It had columns and a triangular shape above them. The windows on the first two floors were large with many small panes of glass. The windows on the top floor were smaller. The roof had a decorative edge and was sloped.
From Merchant's Home to Town Hall
By the 1830s, a merchant named Samuel Cochrane owned the house. He sold muslin fabric and brought his goods through Donaghadee Harbour.
Later, in 1914, the Pritchard family bought the building. They used it as a boarding house, a place where people could stay. In the mid-1900s, the Donaghadee Urban District Council bought the building. This council was the local government for the area. They moved their offices and departments into this building.
The building served as the main office for the council for many years. However, in 1973, a bigger council called Ards Borough Council was formed. Donaghadee Town Hall was no longer the main government building.
New Uses and Restoration
After 1973, the council still used the building for local services. This included helping with local job programs. But in the early 2000s, the building became empty. It started to fall into disrepair.
In 2017, a developer named Michael Dunlop bought the building. He started a big project to fix it up. The project cost about £1.9 million. They removed the old plaster from the front of the building. They also fixed the stone walls.
The inside of the building was changed into five private apartments. Four new small houses were also built in the courtyard behind the main building. All this work was finished in 2021. The old Town Hall now has a new life as modern homes.
