Project of the week

Whaley’s Buildings get their name from the inscription on the base of a stone urn on the corner of Castle Street and Upper Irish Street. The fourteen houses were constructed at different times throughout the 18th century. By the late 1980s, due to planning blight and bomb damage, they had been derelict for twenty years. 

From 1990-1992, Hearth Historic Buildings Trust undertook the complex task of saving these buildings. The scheme, awarded a Diploma of Merit by Europa Nostra in 1995, involved the restoration of 11 of the houses, as well as the reconstruction of the facades at nos. 10 and 12 Upper Irish Street. Two cottages at 32-34 Chapel Lane were combined to form one house, and three new homes created a terrace alongside them. Upon completion, the houses were all sold.

The rescue of these buildings was a catalyst for further regeneration; it was a major factor in the Housing Executive carrying out its sympathetic new‐build scheme on the remainder of Castle Street, later facilitating the restoration of neglected buildings in nearby Market Street

‘The early 1990s saw Whaley’s Buildings in Castle Street restored in one of Armagh’s most successful building conservation schemes.’
Sean Barden, Curator of the Armagh County Museum.