11 Victoria Crescent, Lisburn, County Antrim, BT27 4TG

Mid-terrace two-bay two-storey polychromatic brick house, built circa 1880, located in Lisburn, County Antrim.

The house is rectangular on plan, facing southwest, with a single-storey modern flat-roofed rendered extension added to the rear. It forms part of a distinctive crescent of nineteen similar houses arranged across Wesley Street and Millbrook Road, converging at an unusual acute angle on the east side of Queens Road and set at a lower level than the road itself.

The external walls are laid in red brick in English garden wall bond with yellow brick courses and a brick plinth course. The pitched roof is covered in artificial slate with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles and retains two original polychromatic brick chimneystacks. Cast-iron rainwater goods are fitted to a yellow brick angled eaves course.

The front elevation, set slightly higher than the neighbouring house, is three windows wide. The window openings are segmental-headed with yellow brick surrounds, black brick keystones, painted sandstone sills, and uPVC windows (replacements for the original glazing). The projecting arched yellow brick door surround has a black brick keystone, impost mouldings, stop-chamfered pilasters, and brick plinth blocks. The door itself is a replacement hardwood glazed door with overlight, opening onto two concrete steps.

The left side elevation is abutted by adjoining house No. 9, the right side elevation by adjoining house No. 13, and the rear by the modern extension.

Despite the loss of its original windows, the house retains much of its late Victorian character externally and preserves the original stair internally. The terrace first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of circa 1900 and shows stylistic echoes of the neighbouring Methodist Church, which was opened in 1876.

The house was built as part of low-cost housing development for workers in the nearby linen mills, including Barbour's thread mill, Richardson's beetling mill, and the Island flax spinning mill. According to current occupants, the terrace was built by Barbour's as accommodation for bachelors and spinsters, though census records from the early twentieth century indicate that the majority of residents were families. Census returns show that about half the inhabitants worked in the linen industry, mostly as linen thread workers, with many other occupations also represented. The larger houses around the curve of Wesley and Millbrook Streets operated as boarding houses.

At the 1901 census, the house was occupied by Arthur Williamson, a yarn bleacher, with his three adult children, one of whom worked as a linen thread winder. By 1911, Williamson had become an army pensioner. The house is designated second class and comprises seven rooms according to its size and construction.

The house has group value with the other houses in the distinctive terrace and with the neighbouring Methodist Church and Manse to the north.