19 Bridge Street, Lisburn, County Antrim, BT28 1XZ

A well-proportioned three-storey, two-bay terraced commercial building with flats to upper floors, dating from the late eighteenth century and located on Bridge Street in Lisburn city centre. The building is rectangular on plan with a single-storey gabled return to the rear.

The principal southwest-facing elevation is four windows wide at upper floors. The pitched natural slate roof has terracotta ridge tiles and tall rendered chimneystack with terracotta pots. Walling is painted smooth render. Windows to the first floor are 6/6 timber-framed sliding sash; those to the second floor are 6/3. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods are fitted throughout.

The ground-floor shopfront is an important early survival. It comprises a double-leaf single panel door with transom light positioned left of centre, flanked by panelled pilasters on plinths with carved lion-heads and scrolled capitals. These carved details also appear at the far right. To the right of the shopfront is a double plate-glass panel framed by timber moulding featuring a "twisted rope" pattern, continuing to the transom light above. A replacement timber fascia with modern painted lettering surmounts the shopfront. A timber replica of the golden lion from the former Lion Tea House sits on a projecting timber plinth above the shopfront. To the left of the shopfront is a double-panelled timber-sheeted door set in recess. To the right is a six raised-and-fielded panel timber door with a round-headed elongated transom light above.

The northwest elevation is abutted by the adjoining building. The northeast rear elevation has windows to the far left and right at second-floor level, with a diminutive window to the right of centre. A window is positioned to the right at first-floor level, with a gabled return containing two windows. The southeast elevation is similarly abutted by the adjoining building.

The building stands at the centre of Bridge Street, with Market Square to the west and the cemetery of Lisburn Cathedral to the rear, bounded by a cement-rendered rubble stone wall.

Lisburn, formerly known as Lisnagarvey until the 1660s, was established in the early seventeenth century following James I's grant of the Killultagh manor to Sir Fulke Conway. Sir Fulke established his estate headquarters at Lisburn and constructed a timber bridge at the foot of Bridge Street, which appears on a 1640 map showing both sides of the street already lined with buildings. A disastrous fire in 1707 was followed by rapid rebuilding to the original street plan, using improved materials: brick replaced wood, and slates and tiles replaced shingles. Oak beams from 34 Bridge Street, dated by the School of Archaeology and Palaeoecology at Queen's University Belfast to around 1710, suggest that Bridge Street buildings were among the earliest constructed following the fire.

Little is known of 19 Bridge Street's early history. The site appears on Thomas Pattison's map of 1833. By 1901, the premises operated as a painter's shop run by William John Heron, a Master Painter, who lived above with his wife and adult daughter Charlotte. The 1911 census records the building as having six rooms and eleven windows to the front façade, indicating that the shopfront was then divided into three windows. Painter and decorator Jonathan Graham later took over the shop and was resident there at his death in 1933.

The building was restored with Heritage Lottery funding as part of the Lisburn Historic Quarter Initiative around 2000 and 2001. The restoration included sensitive treatment of the fenestration and shopfront. Elements of the shopfront incorporate features from the former Golden Lion Tea House, which stood at 59 Bow Street. The lion replica above the shopfront reproduces the original golden lion from the Tea House, donated by Lisburn Historical Society to the museum. The Golden Lion Tea House's exterior was severely damaged by a terrorist bomb in 1972, but its door surround and window mullions appear to have survived and have been re-used in the current building. The original Tea House was owned by Jordan Brothers, but was taken over in the late 1880s by James Macartney of Cabra, whose initials appear in the window mullion. Bridge Street was the most important commercial thoroughfare in the city during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and 19 Bridge Street remains an important element within the street and the wider historic city centre.