The Shillington Building, Castle Street, Portadown, Craigavon, Co Armagh BT62 1BD

The Shillington Building is a substantial mid-19th century provincial warehouse complex on Castle Street, Portadown, situated adjacent to the River Bann. The principal listed elements are the two-storey L-shaped warehouse (buildings 1A and 1B), erected in 1869, together with two Belfast Truss-roofed sheds (buildings 3 and 4) of 1930s date. The site as a whole has been in continuous use as a builders' merchant for approximately 150 years, for most of that time under the sole management of the Shillington family, and is a well-known local landmark. The complex is located within a conservation area.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

The plot began to be developed in the early 1800s. The 1835 Ordnance Survey map shows a long building aligned east–west on the east side of Castle Street, directly opposite a large distillery on the west side. The 1836 Valuation records it as a store and kiln belonging to Thomas Shillington. He had his own private quay along the south side of the plot, and there was also a public quay on its north side, both served by artificial cuts off the River Bann. An 1841–42 street directory records Thomas A. Shillington of Church Street, Portadown, as a grocer, tea dealer, and coal, iron, timber and grain merchant. The building shown on the map was undoubtedly where these goods were temporarily stored, having been brought by lighter from Belfast along the Lagan Navigation and up the Lower Bann.

By 1860 that original store had disappeared, and only two small houses remained at the north-west corner of the plot. The original store was probably demolished to make way for a substantial block erected by 1862 along the south side of the plot by Thomas A. Shillington and his son Thomas. The 1862 Valuation records this block as comprising an office, caretaker's house, stores, a weighbridge and a quay. The stores included a five-storey building 15.8 metres (52 feet) high, erected as a mill but not fitted out, with a five-storey return used as a corn kiln for drying grain prior to storage. There was also an engine house and a 22.6-metre (74-foot) high chimney. A pictorial view of around 1861 looking upstream towards the Bann Bridge shows the substantial scale of these new additions. An 1890s photograph shows the five-storey store, kiln return, and tapered brick chimney. A 1911 photograph records the caretaker's house as two storeys high with a hipped roof and a central chimney. The 1864 Valuation revision book notes the addition of a saw mill abutting the north side of the 1862 block; it would have been driven by a steam engine, as no water power was available despite the proximity of the Bann, owing to insufficient fall.

In 1869 the L-shaped two-storey store (buildings 1A and 1B) was added along the north and west sides of the plot, clearing the two remaining houses at the north-west corner. The 1890 and 1906 Ordnance Survey maps show all the 1860s buildings around the north, west and south sides of the plot, with an internal yard containing the saw mill, open to the river at its east end, the public quay to the north, and Shillington's private quay and coal yard to the south.

On 6 August 1930, fire gutted the five-storey buildings and parts of adjoining structures. The saw mill and the stores along the north and west sides of the block escaped damage. A second fire on 21 May 1932 completely destroyed the saw mill along with a 60 horsepower oil engine which had by then superseded the original steam engine. A contemporary newspaper photograph records the devastation and shows that the north wall of the five-storey section had already been reduced to two storeys following the 1930 fire. On 18 July 1932, Shillington's auctioned the surviving saw-milling machinery, comprising a band saw, three circular bench saws, and planing and moulding machines. The 1933 Ordnance Survey map shows all the buildings along the south side of the block replaced by the present two-storey showroom building (building 2) and a shed (building 3), with a new saw mill housed in a large infill shed at the east end of the yard (building 4). Building 5 is shown on the 1947 map and building 6 in its present form on the 1963–67 map. In 1979 the firm was taken over by the Haldane Shiells Group and now trades as Haldane Fisher Ltd.

BUILDING 1A — THE CASTLE STREET FRONTAGE (WEST ELEVATION)

The west-facing frontage of building 1A is aligned north–south along Castle Street. Unlike the side return, it has two floors internally. The entire façade is of brick, with a moulded yellow-brick cornice running along this elevation. Rainwater goods on the west elevation comprise cast-iron ogee gutters and rectangular-section downpipes.

The ground floor has a double-leaf tongue-and-groove timber doorway towards its left-hand end, set in a three-centred brick archway trimmed with round-edged brick. Towards the right-hand end is a pedestrian entrance with a four-panel timber door (fitted with a brass letterbox) and a rectangular over-light. Immediately to its right is a small polished brass plaque reading "T.A. Shillington & Son Limited, Registered Office." The ground floor also has three 2-over-2 sliding sash timber windows, all with horizontal glazing bars and security grilles. The large picture window opening at the right-hand end of the ground floor dates from the 1930s when building 2 was added; it is uncertain whether there was a smaller window in this position originally.

The first floor has five regularly-spaced 2-over-2 sash windows. All windows on this elevation have dressed stone cills. Between the two floors, to the right of the vehicle entrance, painted capital letters read "T A Shillington"; they probably continued as "& Son Ltd" before the frontage of building 2 was modified.

BUILDING 1B — THE NORTH ELEVATION (SIDE RETURN)

The north elevation of building 1B extends the full length of the block. Although it rises to the same eaves height as 1A, it has three floors internally rather than two. The moulded yellow-brick cornice continues along the north and east sides of 1B. Cast-iron ogee gutters and round downpipes serve the north elevation; plastic replacements are used on the yard elevations.

The ground floor has a vehicular entrance detailed identically to that on the west elevation of 1A. There is also a second vehicular entrance towards the left end; the maps show this to have been an original opening, but its brick jambs and three-centred head have been altered to accommodate a flat concrete head, and it now has a roller shutter door. A pedestrian doorway at the right-hand end, on the north gable of 1A, appears to be original, though the present door may be a replacement. Between the two vehicular doors are four small square windows, all later inserts with top-opening timber casements and shallow concrete cills; the stonework around them has been noticeably repointed with cement-rich mortar. There is also a modern fire escape door inserted at the left-hand end of this elevation.

The first floor has nine openings. The one above the left-hand vehicle entrance is a double-leaf timber loading door; the one at the right-hand end is a later insert to light an internal toilet. The remaining seven are original flat-headed window openings, all but one fitted with 1-over-1 timber sashes and stone cills. The second floor has eight openings in line with the original first-floor windows, all 1-over-2 timber sashes of diminished height, detailed in the same manner. The original openings at first- and second-floor level may well have been fitted with timber shutters or louvred vents originally.

The east gable of 1B has a large window opening at first-floor level and a smaller one at second-floor level; both are now infilled with brick. Most of the south (yard) elevation of 1B is obscured by later additions (buildings 4 and 5) and cement render, though several original semicircular-headed brick archways are visible at ground-floor level, together with assorted window and door openings at first- and second-floor level, some of which may be later inserts and most of which are infilled or sheeted over. The east (yard) elevation of 1A is completely abutted by later buildings 5 and 6.

OVERALL CONSTRUCTION OF BUILDING 1

The lower part of the entire building is of random rubble masonry brought to courses; its upper part is of brick. The façade of 1A is entirely of brick. The roof is of natural slate on a hipped structure, with a raised brick firewall between the two internal bays of 1B. The moulded yellow-brick cornice is absent from the yard elevations of both 1A and 1B, which were not in public view.

BUILDING 2 — TWO-STOREY OFFICES AND SHOWROOM (1930s)

This two-storey building dates from the 1930s and was erected on the site of the 1860s caretaker's house, four-storey offices and stores, and the five-storey mill and kiln along the south side of the block. Its west end is aligned north–south along Castle Street, continuous with the south end of building 1A; the rest runs east–west along the south side of the block. The roof is of pitched natural slate with skylights; it is so well integrated with building 1A that the entirety of building 1 may well have been reslated when building 2 was erected. Rainwater goods are plastic ogee gutters on timber eaves boards with round plastic downpipes.

The walls comprise a rectangular reinforced-concrete frame with external brick infill panels. The framing is evident along the west and south elevations in the form of continuous opening heads at both ground and first floor. Although the brickwork of buildings 1 and 2 is similar, a wall break is visible between them at first-floor level on the west façade, and also at ground-floor level, one opening to the left of the first-floor break, where part of building 1B has been removed to create a ground-floor picture window in building 2.

The west façade, continuous with building 1A on Castle Street, has two large picture windows at ground floor (one of which falls within building 1A), a pedestrian door at ground floor, and two large picture windows at first floor. All windows are modern double-glazed replacements or previous windows of similar size. A modern name board runs between ground- and first-floor level, and advertising panels are affixed between the first-floor windows.

The south elevation has assorted timber-framed casement windows with concrete cills to both floors, pedestrian doorways at ground floor and at first-floor right (the latter reached by an external metal staircase), and a modern projecting bay at first-floor level supported on metal columns, which houses an office and forms a canopy over the left-hand ground-floor doorway. The east gable is rendered with cement and has no openings, apart from an exposed brick apex. The north elevation, although now largely abutted by infill buildings 4, 5 and 6, retains visible evidence of the mid-19th century five-storey mill and kiln in the form of random rubble walling at ground- and first-floor levels, as shown also in a 1932 newspaper photograph taken after the fire that gutted the saw mill. Small segmental-headed brick-trimmed window openings associated with the original mill are also visible, though now infilled.

BUILDING 3 — SMALL SINGLE-STOREY SHED WITH BELFAST TRUSS ROOF (1930s)

This single-storey, single-bay building is aligned east–west at the south-east corner of the block. In its present form it probably dates from the 1930s and now houses the saw mill. It has a curved corrugated-metal Belfast truss roof with plastic skylights and gutters of cement-fibre and plastic. Walls are of painted concrete blockwork and/or brick to the south, exposed random rubble to the east, and a mixture of random rubble and brick to the north; the west end is formed by building 2. The east gable shows at least three phases of construction: random rubble masonry in the body of the wall; snecked random rubble in the apex; and red brickwork along the top of the stonework, most of which dates from when the present roof was inserted in the 1930s. There is a large roller-shuttered door at the west end of the south elevation, an infilled pedestrian doorway on the east gable trimmed with brick, a small later window on the east gable (now infilled), and a wide doorway with a rolled steel joist head at the west end of the north elevation.

BUILDING 4 — LARGE SINGLE-STOREY SHED WITH BELFAST TRUSS ROOF (1930s)

This building infills the east end of the yard between building 1B to the north and buildings 2 and 3 to the south. It occupies the site of the 19th century saw mill and was probably erected in the 1930s shortly after the fire that destroyed the previous mill. The roof is of bowstring construction covered with felt, with corrugated plastic skylights along its apex. There is a wide flat valley gutter along its north side discharging into a cast-iron ogee gutter and metal downpipe on the east gable. The roof is accessible via a window hatch on the top floor of building 1B. A portion of the original roof was subsequently cut out at the south-east to accommodate a flat concrete roof over rolled steel joists, into which an extraction fan has been inserted. The north and south supporting walls are as described under buildings 1B and 3 respectively. The west end is open except for its roof apex, which is clad with vertical timber boards. The east gable is of random rubble with later alterations in brick. The large opening at the left may once have been a doorway or wide window; it is infilled with brick into which a smaller window with a concrete cill has been inserted but is now also infilled. There is a similarly infilled window at the right. The upper part of this gable is clad with corrugated metal and has twelve contiguous single-pane, timber-framed windows across it.

BUILDING 5 — SMALL TWO-STOREY STORE (1940s)

This L-shaped two-storey building is an infill probably dating from the 1940s. It has a pitched corrugated-asbestos roof with skylights and semicircular asbestos-fibre gutters. The ground floor is largely open; the first floor sits on rolled steel joist beams resting on concrete-encased rolled steel joists. The first-floor walls are of corrugated metal over timber frames. At first-floor level there are doors connecting to buildings 1A and 2, together with miscellaneous multi-paned timber-framed windows with timber cills. An external metal staircase gives access to the first floor at the north end of the east elevation.

BUILDING 6 — TWO-STOREY OFFICES (1940s–1960s)

This two-storey, two-bay unit is a late infill added sometime between the 1940s and 1960s. The two bays were probably built sequentially rather than simultaneously. Both have flat roofs (one also has raised plastic skylights), partly-rendered brick walls, and timber casement windows with concrete heads and cills. Both floors are accessible from building 2.

SETTING

The setting of the Shillington block has changed dramatically over the past half century. To the north lies a tarmacked public car park extending as far as Northway, the embanked road over the River Bann built in the 1970s to serve Craigavon, together with a modern public slipway into the river. Until the mid-20th century, a public quay ran parallel with the north side of the block as far as Castle Street, with industrial buildings beyond it up to the Belfast–Dublin railway embankment on the far side of Northway. The west side of the block is bounded as always by Castle Street; the industrial buildings that once stood opposite have been cleared to make way for a surface car park. To the south is an open yard belonging to the firm. Shillington's had their own private quay running parallel with and just beyond the south side of the block as far as the road; the inlet is long since infilled and the rest of the plot has been tarmacked for customer parking and storage of building materials. The plot between this quay and Bridge Street was the first to be developed by Shillington's in the 1830s. To the east, the premises originally extended as far as the Bann; in recent years the local council acquired the narrow strip of land between the buildings and the river and created the Bann Boulevard, a public footpath running south along the river to Whitecoat Point, where it connects with the Newry Canal towpath and the Ulster Way. The adjacency of the complex to the River Bann reflects the importance of river traffic to and from the premises in the 19th century.