Lenaderg Post Office, 192 Huntly Road, Lenaderg, Banbridge, Co. Down, BT32 4NW

Lenaderg Post Office, 192 Huntly Road, Lenaderg

This is a two-storey, multi-bay former shop and post office built around 1868, constructed as part of a planned industrial settlement known as Milltown, located at the junction of Huntly Road and Dandy Row, approximately one and a half miles north of Banbridge. It was built by William and John Smyth as a combined shop and dwelling house and, although no longer in service as a post office, has retained a large proportion of its historic fabric and much of its original character. Together with the adjacent cluster of historic buildings it forms part of one of only a few planned settlements in Northern Ireland, making it of considerable historic and local interest as a largely unaltered example of small-scale 19th-century development generated by the local linen industry.

Architectural Description

The building is double-fronted and L-shaped in plan, with a canted corner entrance, and incorporates an extension to the immediately adjacent house. It sits directly on the bend of the road, with its principal elevations facing north and east.

The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with a leaded ridge and hips. Rainwater goods are cast iron, and the chimneys are red brick. The walls are red brick laid in Flemish bond.

The ground-floor shop frontage features tripartite display windows flanked by panelled pilasters, with a continuous timber signboard above finished with a moulded cornice. The remaining windows are two-over-two timber sliding sash with horizontal glazing bars and horns, set on painted masonry cills. The front door is a double-leaf timber door with a rectangular overlight, currently boarded up on the exterior.

On the east elevation, the left bay is incorporated at both ground and first floor into the adjoining dwelling, with one window at each level and a blocked-up window at ground floor to the right. The right portion of this elevation is clearly identifiable as the shop, with a higher eaves line, a tripartite display window at ground floor with signage above, and a single first-floor window. The chamfered corner to the right contains the main shop entrance and a single first-floor window. On the north elevation there are double tripartite display windows at ground floor with a central post box, a first-floor window to the centre and right, and a blocked-up window to the left. The left elevation abuts the adjoining dwelling, and the rear elevation is abutted by the rear return of that same property. The right elevation abuts a further adjoining dwelling.

A red telephone box of the K6 type, installed around 1940, stands adjacent to the front door. A cluster of associated historic buildings lies to the north and west, with some modern housing development to the south.

Historical Background

Milltown was established in 1820 when John Smyth (1798–1890), descended from a linen-trading family, purchased a corn mill and surrounding land from the Crawford family and erected an extensive bleaching and finishing works. Around 1825 he built Milltown House, reputedly as a wedding present for his fiancée Anna McClelland of Belmont House. By 1839, John Smyth & Co had become the largest bleaching and finishing works on the River Bann, producing 40,000 pieces of cloth per year. Three of John and Anna Smyth's twelve children later formed William Smyth & Co Ltd, which went on to employ more than 250 people. In 1857 the Smyths acquired the Bannville Beetling Mill, and by that time they had customers across the world, including in the United States, Italy, Russia and Germany. An iron foundry was established in 1876 to serve the company's own needs as well as local light engineering. By 1886, the bleach works and bleach greens covered 220 acres; the works were water-powered with steam as an auxiliary source, and there were six iron water wheels. The railway connecting Banbridge with Scarva (1859) and Lisburn (1863) provided a convenient means of transport for the company's goods and no doubt aided this expansion.

In common with Victorian industrialists on the Bann and elsewhere, the Smyths followed a tradition of social paternalism, providing housing, education, a reading room, and funds for the sick, for funeral expenses, and for the provision of food, fuel and clothing during difficult seasons.

The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833 shows Milltown House, a bleach mill on the Bann, and extensive bleach greens. By the second edition of 1860 there had been considerable development, including the addition of a national school and workers' housing. The shop and adjoining house, however, were not built until around 1864–1868. Valuation records show the building first appearing in the Annual Revision fieldbook for the period 1864–1878, initially listed as a newly-built vacant dwelling valued at £2 10s and an adjacent shop valued at £6. The buildings appear to have been unfinished at that time and were revalued in 1868 at £4 and £10 10s respectively. The landlord was initially John Smyth Senior, and later William Smyth & Co Ltd.

The building originally comprised a small dwelling house, similar to those in Dandy Row, which was valued separately from the shop. The first recorded occupant of the shop was John Henry Barr (1868). William Pennington took over the house in 1873, at which point the shop valuation was raised to £15 10s, possibly in connection with an extension built between the shop and the neighbouring house at number 190, the ground floor of which forms part of the shop. Bassett's Directory of 1886 lists the postmistress as Mrs M. Barr, who advertised herself as a "family grocer, draper and general house furnisher," specialising also in "millinery, dress and mantle making."

The 1901 census records the premises as a drapery and grocer's shop run by William Boal, who lived there with his wife and step-daughter, along with two paid assistants and two apprentices aged fifteen and fourteen. Margaret Boal took over in 1909, and by the time of the 1911 census the postmaster was twenty-six-year-old Richard Wright, assisted by his brother. A photograph taken in 1914 shows Dick Wright flanked by two of his sons in front of the store, and the façade of the shop has changed little since that time. The Wright family went on to establish Wright's Engineering Garage in Dromore Street, Banbridge in 1921.

A letter franked at this post office in 1848 survives, suggesting the business may go back to the 1840s, when it is thought to have been opened as a co-operative by the mill owners Smyth & Co. However, as the current building was not erected until the mid-1860s, the business may initially have operated from elsewhere within Milltown. The post office was well used in the area because mill workers were drawn from all over the country.

In 1922 the smaller house and post office was occupied by Herbert J. Martin, who had previously run a grocer's shop in Lawrencetown, while the larger house and shop was occupied by his son Robert J. Martin. Herbert died in 1927, leaving his widow Sadie and sons Roy and Billy to run the business. By 1930 both parts were again jointly occupied by Sarah Martin and were revalued at £24 in the mid-1930s. The post office opened at 8am and closed at 7.30pm, while the shop remained open until 8pm on weekdays and 10pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

By the time of the First General Revaluation in the early 1930s, the house at number 190, the shop and the post office were included in a single valuation entry at £22 10s, subsequently raised to £24. The accommodation at that time comprised a corner shop, a branch post office in the former house to the side, five bedrooms, two reception rooms, a kitchen, scullery and pantry, with a coal yard at the rear. The annual rent was £36. Roy Martin, son of Sarah Martin, became the last postmaster and held the position for thirty-four years until the post office closed in 2000. The shop was described as "a step back in time."