Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB14/04/024

Address :
Marlborough House Central Way Tamnafiglassan Craigavon BT64 1AD

Townland:
Tamnafiglassan

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Survey 2:
B1

Date of Listing:
30/09/2025 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Office

Former Use
Office

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
182/9

IG Ref:
J0425 5670

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Owner Category

Central Govt

Exterior Description And Setting

Substantial, but compactly proportioned six-storey cuboid modernist office block of 1973-77 designed as part of the initial phase of the development of the ‘central core’ of New City of Craigavon, whose façade is almost entirely composed of a uniform grid of distinctive oblong concrete window panels with pill shaped windows. SETTING The building is located within what is still a largely open
setting to the W of Central Way, Craigavon. To the immediate E is a large car park, with a landscaped parkland area to the W and N, with a smaller area of landscaping and another car park to the S separating the block from more recently constructed buildings. There are several small single-storey freestanding structures close to the rear of the building. GENERAL The plan is basically square, save for a wide single-storey entrance / foyer projection to the N, and in overall form the building resembles a large, slightly flattened cube but with a recessed (cantilevered) ground floor level, and a set-back plant section on the roof. ELEVATIONS - UPPER LEVELS Apart from the entrance projection, all sides of the building are identical with the upper six floors being composed of a uniform grid of textured (i.e. exposed aggregate) grey-coloured rectangular concrete panels, within each of which is a marginally smaller and slightly projecting concrete panel with curved corners. All of the latter have a similarly textured, white-coloured surface, and a tall narrow offset pill shaped fixed pane window, and each inner panel projects further at the top giving the subtle but noticeable illusion, (when viewed at close quarters from ground level), that the faces of the building are splayed. GROUND LEVEL The recessed ground level is largely made up of more textured grey concrete panels with a series of similar offset pill windows. The panels curve into matching concrete paving with the pilotis supporting the upper floor overhang clad in similar material. The part of the NW corner is finished in brown rustic brick, and there are several service doorways to the rear (W), with another doorway with access ramp to the S. ENTRANCE PROJECTION The entrance, which although large, is discretely positioned to the right of centre on the N side of the building. It is finished in the same manner as the rest of the ground level, but with an overhanging flat roof with tall parapet. Its broad frontage has five, large, centrally (and symmetrically) positioned openings, all with curved corners. The three central openings are doorways, with glazed doors (which look like replacements) to the outer two of these, and a plain flat panel double leaf door to that to the centre. The windows have two pane frames. In front of the entrance is a relatively recently constructed access ramp.

Architects

Sandy Bannerman & Donal Crawley-CDC

Historical Information

This office block was designed as one of the initial components of the core - or town centre - of the ‘Central Area’ of the new city of Craigavon and was constructed in 1973-77. The idea of an entirely large-scale development between Lurgan and Portadown was the main recommendation of Sir Robert Matthew’s advisory plan for the Belfast region produced in 1960-63. Intended to draw what at that point was predicted to be a steep rise in the local population away from Belfast, the new city scheme was subsequently approved by the Northern Ireland Government, and work on the project under the direction of the newly constituted Craigavon Development Commission (CDC) commenced in 1965. The whole concept came to be looked upon as the stimulus for the modernisation of local urban planning, and in some respects for NI society in general. The new settlement was conceived along a linear plan that was hoped would eventually incorporate the two existing towns into a single conglomeration. At the heart of this new entity the Central Area was - in addition to housing - to ‘accommodate shopping, office, institutional, entertainment and specialized recreational facilities for a new and expanding population’. By 1969 a ‘Central Core’ concept for the layout of the area had been decided upon, with the main concentration of commercial and civic buildings arranged within a relatively compact rectangular zone stretching between the existing railway line to the north and the new road alignment to the south, the core itself bisected by a dual carriageway, essential for what was predicted to be a car dominated future but a radical departure from the traditional intimacy of local urban centres. Further beyond this, to east and west, were to be lower density residential developments and recreational spaces, and in addition a swathe of poorly drained land to the east, unsuitable for building, was to be flooded and two lakes created. The plan envisaged that the basic elements of the core – government offices, a retail complex, hotel, post office, warehouses, and a new bus and railway station, (the latter intended as the main transport hub for the entire Craigavon area), would be in place by 1974, with further facilities such as greatly expanded office blocks and shops, a courthouse, telephone exchange, and sprawling multi-level car parks, (set into the lower ground and spanning over the dual-carriageway between the offices and shops), joining these by 1976. By 1981 it was anticipated that the bulk of the housing (both low and high rise) would have been completed, with further retail, business, car parking and warehouse buildings also present, and close to the railway station, a heliport. Finally, towards ‘the end of the century’, it was envisioned that as well as further commercial and business structures, there would be a large sports stadium and sports centre beyond the housing to the west, and to the east, a museum. The onset of the Troubles, combined with economic slowdown, a much slower rise in population than had been projected, concerns about the quality of the new housing in the earliest of the new estates, and resultant failure to attract long-term residents, stymied the whole Craigavon project, however. Consequently, progress on the development of the Central Core – ‘this imaginative city centre concept’ - was slow. Building work on the ‘First phase’ of what was by that time becoming referred to as ‘Craigavon Town Centre’ did not commence until late 1973 and by late 1976 although the lakes had been created, the only other building of note at that point was the retail complex (‘Craigavon Shopping Centre’), which was not yet fully tenanted. Designed by CDC’s architects led by Sandy Bannerman and Donal Crawley, construction of the present office block started in late November 1973. Hailed as the ‘first beat for heart of New City’, it was originally intended that the ‘high quality office accommodation’ with its ‘futuristic heating system’ ('using thermal balance rays' and incorporating ‘the use of natural light to cut down on costs’), would be ready for use by the end of 1975 / early 1976. It was hoped that in addition to serving as administration space for the new Craigavon Borough Council, (the body that succeeded the CDC in 1973), the building would both attract and provide accommodation for private businesses wishing to establish themselves in the area, thus boosting the local economy and employment, and acting as a catalyst for the new town centre and Craigavon as a whole. But no private tenants were forthcoming and in January 1976 the Council decided against taking up the offer of a floor and a half, choosing instead to push for a dedicated civic centre. With no interest being shown from any quarter, the Government decided in May 1977 to use the premises for Housing Executive and Civil Service personnel, but the lack of canteen facilities, plus disagreements over the type of telephone system to be installed, meant that the block lay vacant for another year and half. Officially named ‘Marlborough House’* in September 1978, continuing delays in finding tenants lead to it being featured in a newspaper article the following month as ‘the house that nobody wants’ and dubbed by some locals as ‘the white elephant’. Conversely it was praised in other quarters as a ‘luxury building’ and the ‘utmost in offices…far outshining anything on offer in the rest of Ulster’. The block finally received its first occupants – the staff of HM Inspector of Taxes, Craigavon - in December 1978. They were joined by the Area Officers of the Housing Executive in March 1980, with the local DoE Planning Office taking up the remaining three floors by the end of that year. Despite the completion of two other elements of the original central core plan, the civic centre and courthouse, (opened in 1983 and 1985 respectively), the impetus for the further major officially led development in the vicinity, and in Craigavon in general, had virtually ceased by the mid-1980s. Subsequent decades have witnessed the gradual extending of the shopping centre and the construction of other scattered retail units, the addition / upgrading of leisure facilities and, most noticeably, the building of much private housing, but with all of this, (and the last in particular being as it is arranged in dense clusters), having no reference to the grand schemes set out in 1969. Marlborough House itself has remained the only office block to have been constructed within the locality and since the 1980s has been retained for government use, though at the time of writing (January 2024), only a small part of the building is still occupied. [*The name was chosen by local schoolchildren and was reputedly inspired by ‘Marlbrook Terrace’, a row of 12 dwellings (built 1953-54) that stood close to the north-east of the site.] References – Primary sources 1 ‘Lurgan Mail’ – 13 March 1953, p.5; 12 February 1954, p.1; 29 November 1973, p.4; 14 March 1974, p.4; 1 August 1974, p.17; 9 January 1975, p.3; 20 March 1975, pp.1, 12; 10 July 1975, p.4; 8 January 1976, p9; 14 February 1980, p.8 2 OS map, IG sheet 182-9 - 1964 3 New City Design Group, ‘First report on the proposed New City, Co. Armagh’, (Belfast, HMSO,1964) 4 ‘Craigavon New City – Strategic plan for Central Area’ (Craigavon Development Commission, 1969) 5 ‘Belfast Telegraph’ – 9 May 1972, p.10; 12 March 1973, p.12; 23 August 1973, p.8; 26 November 1973, p4; 9 September 1976, p.7; 28 June 1977, p.8; 29 June 1977, p.10; 22 May 1978, p.7; 8 February 1980, p.13 6 ‘Belfast News-Letter’ – 19 February 1973, p.9; 27 November 1973, p.6; 3 August 1977, p.1 7 ‘Portadown News’ – 8 January 1971, p.6; 5 May 1972, p.3; 17 August 1973, p.14; 15 March 1974, p.17; 25 July 1975, p.11; 17 December 1976, p.38; 11 August 1978, p.5; 11 November 1977, pp.3, 6; 15 September 1978, p.9; 27 October 1978, p.3; 1 December 1978, p.2; 15 December 1978 p.12; 30 March 1979, p.93; 6 July 1979, p.63; 14 March 1980, p.9; 5 September 1980, p.8 8 'Ulster Star', 20 April 1974, p.25 9 ‘Portadown Times’ – 11 August 1972, p.18; 15 March 1974, p.11; “Craigavon Progress” supplement, 30 Mar. 1979, p.9; 29 April 1983, pp.21-24; 26 April 1985, p.14 10 ‘The Portadown News and Craigavon Times’ - 18 Nov. 1977, p.3 Secondary sources 11 Mulligan, Kevin V., The buildings of Ireland. South Ulster - Armagh, Cavan and Monaghan, (Yale, 2013), p.300 12 McClelland, Andrew, “Towards Craigavon. The New City in County Armagh in historical context” in Review: Journal of the Craigavon Historical Society Vol.10 No.3, (2017), p.1 13 'Creating Craigavon - A research project by PLACE on behalf of Craigavon Borough Council', (Craigavon Borough Council, 2015) 14 McCabe, Rebekah, Back to the future. A history of Craigavon’s development, (PLACE, 2017) Online sources 14 'The Herald' - 1 April 2022 (https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/apr/11/sandy-bannerman-obituary) Accessed April 2024 15 'The Guardian' - 11 April 2022 (https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/20039355.obituary-sandy-bannerman-key-architect-planner-uks-new-town-movement/) Accessed April 2024 16 'Armaghi' (https://armaghi.com/news/craigavon-news/closure-of-hmrc-at-marlborough-house-will-see-40-jobs-lost-to-borough/76493) Accessed January 2024 17 https://www.scottisharchitects.org.uk/architect_full.php?id=400986 Accessed April 2024 18 ‘Dictionary of National Biography’ entry for Sandy Bannerman (https://doi.org/10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.90000382769 ) Accessed July 2025

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation D. Plan Form G. Innovatory Qualities I. Quality and survival of Interior J. Setting

Historic Interest

S. Authenticity U. Historic Associations Z. Rarity W. Northern Ireland/International Interest

Evaluation

Marlborough House is a freestanding Modernist seven-storey office block, built in 1973-77 as part of the first - and as it turned out, only - coordinated phase of the town centre of the ‘New City’ of Craigavon, to date Northern Ireland’s sole New Town development. The building is closely bound up with the story of Craigavon, whose inception and evolution was a major event in the history of the country, and which was viewed at the time as the stimulus for the modernisation not only of urban planning but for NI society in general. It remains the only building of that initial town centre phase to have survived in anything resembling its original form and as such is an expressive representation of the whole Craigavon project, and a unique local structure. It is also one of Northern Ireland’s most unusual and distinctive Modernist 1970s designs, being a cuboid structure with a façade almost entirely ornamented by a space-age grid of concrete panels which are angled slightly giving the block the impression of being wedge shaped when viewed up close. Documentary evidence shows that Marlborough House was promoted as state-of-the-art office space, with contemporary sources repeatedly alluding to it being ‘one of the most advanced blocks in Britain’, an ‘ultramodern office block’ a ‘city centre showpiece’, with ‘accommodation of the highest standard’ that far outshined ‘anything on offer in the rest of Ulster’ with particular attention made to the ‘futuristic heating system’ utilising ‘thermal balance rays and which is completely automatic’ and the ‘use of natural light to cut down on costs’. It is clear that it was acknowledged as an early venture – in the local sphere - into creating a sustainable large-scale workplace block and was, for Northern Ireland, an innovative structure as it may have been one of the first large fully air-conditioned office buildings. In terms of both plan and fabric the block is largely intact. There have been some minor changes to the internal detailing and the layout; however, the interior (which represents an early local example of open plan office space) was designed to be flexible and in the main the structure is as built. The building’s open setting allows for a greater appreciation of its prominence and overall architectural composition of what is now a characterful and important structure within the Craigavon area. The original landscape design is fulfilled on three of the four sides and the relatively open location emphasises the block’s solitary mass, as well as its style, ornamentation and proportion, supporting the evocative presentation of Marlborough House as the solitary intact remnant of the new town centre plan for Craigavon.

General Comments

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Date of Survey

10 November 2023