The Town Hall in Market Square, was erected in 1770 by the 1st Marquis of Londonderry. It contains an elegant suite of assembly rooms and other apartments. Underneath are the market offices and shambles.
In 1605, Hugh Montgomery,1st_Viscount_of_the_Great_Ardes was granted the lands and set about rebuilding what was by then known as Newtown, later expanded to Newtownards. Official records show the town was established in 1606. He built a residence in the ruins of the old priory, the tower of which remains. Scottish settlers arrived in large numbers during the Plantation of Ulster and the town grew quickly. Due to the shallow mud of Strangford Lough, Newtown never developed as a port, with goods instead transported from the nearby town of Donaghadee on the Irish Sea coast of the Ards Peninsula. Instead, it became a market town, with the Market House in Conway Square constructed in 1770. The market still operates today on a weekly basis.On the morning of Pike Sunday, 10 June 1798, during the Irish Rebellion of 1798, a force of United Irishmen, mainly from Bangor ,County Down, Donaghadee , Greyabbey and Ballywalter , attempted to occupy the town of Newtownards. They met with musket fire from the market house and were defeated. The early 1800s saw the reclamation of the marshlands south of the town. Newtownards acquired rail links to Belfast via Comber and Dundonald in 1850, and to Donaghadee in 1861. By the same year the town's population had risen to 9,500. As the economy became increasingly tied to Belfast , the town continued to prosper and by the 20th century had increasingly became a commuter town. Newtownards' population reached 13,100 in 1961 and doubled to 27,800 by the end of the century.During the troubles , Newtownards was the scene of a car bomb attack on July 5 1993 , when Roma's Bar in Regent Street was targeted. The pub was completely destroyed, but has since been rebuilt. The attack, carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army was, at 700 kg (1,500 lb) the largest car bomb ever used in Northern Ireland. There were no fatalities.
Scrabo Tower is easily one of the areas most recognisable landmarks, situated at the head of Strangford Lough overlooking the old Market Town of Newtownards
Perched high above Newtownards on Scrabo Hill, this imposing edifice was built in 1857 as a memorial to the Third Marquis of Londonderry. The tower stands in Scrabo Country Park with Woodland walks and parkland. A climb of 122 steps will take visitors to the open viewing level which gives spectacular views across Strangford Lough, The Mourne Mountains, Belfast and beyond to Scotland. On a clear day the views from this monument are astounding.
The Old Cross erected in 1636 the market cross stood in the market place of the Scots market town founded by Hugh Montgomery in 1603. It was the meeting point of the main roads to and from the town. Built of sandstone the cross is octagonal in plan. The inside is hollow and may have been used as an office on market days or as shelter from the night watchmen. Its importance declined when the new market house was built in Conway square in 1765.
The History of Newtownards
Later, the monastery was raided by Hugh O'Neill from Mid-Ulster, after which the urban settlement at Movilla disappeared and the area around it became known as Ballylisnevin , "the town land of the fort of the family of Nevin."
The Normans , who arrived in Ireland after 1169, founded a town in the same place around 1226, named it Nove Ville de Blathewyc ("New Town of Blathewyc", the name of an earlier Irish territory) and established a priory. However, the town declined and by the 1400s the land was controlled by the O'Neill clan, and the town lay virtually abandoned.
In 545 AD, St. Finian founded a monastery near to present-day Newtownards. He named it Movilla (Magh Bile, "the plain of the sacred tree," in Irish) which suggests that the land had previously been a sacred pagan site. This monastery was destroyed by the Vikings sometime after 824 AD and in the 12th century joined together with Bangor Abbey as an Agustinian Monastery .
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