7 Main Street, Hillsborough, County Down, BT26 6AE

7 Main Street, Hillsborough — Early 19th Century Terraced House, Former Royal Irish Constabulary and Royal Ulster Constabulary Barracks

This is a mid-terrace, symmetrical, three-bay, two-storey red brick house with an attic over a railed basement, built in the early 19th century (field inspection supports a construction date of around 1820) and refurbished around 1878. It sits on the west side of Main Street, Hillsborough, facing east, and is rectangular on plan. The listing extends to the house, its railings, and the glasshouse to the rear. The building has group value with No. 5 Main Street (HB19/05/016), which was also formerly part of the local Royal Irish Constabulary Barracks.

Exterior

The pitched roof is covered in natural slate with lead ridges. There is a pair of rebuilt brick chimneystacks at either end and three lead-lined dormers to the rear pitch. Cast-iron guttering on iron brackets runs along a stepped brick eaves course, with a cast-iron downpipe. The brickwork is laid in Flemish bond with cement pointing, while the basement walls are of lime-washed rubblestone.

The front elevation is three windows wide. Window openings are square-headed and contain original 8/8 timber sash windows, re-glazed with imperfect glass, with painted masonry sills. At the centre of the front elevation is a round-headed door opening with an original timber tripartite doorcase: a timber door with four flat panels and iron furniture, flanked by a pair of sidelights and slender panelled pilasters supporting a lintel cornice, with a webbed timber fanlight above. The door opens onto a granite step, and a granite flag bridges the basement area below. Decorative cast-iron railings are embedded into a low granite plinth wall enclosing the basement area on either side. Various original timber sash windows and masonry sills are present at basement level. A cast-iron former RUC wall-mounted street light is attached to the front elevation.

The rear elevation is also three windows wide, with a central double-height round-headed stairhall window reinstated around 1990. The remaining windows are camber-headed with timber sash windows: 6/6 pane to the ground floor, 8/8 to the first floor, and originally 6/3 to the attic dormers. A timber-frame conservatory abuts the rear elevation at basement level.

The south side elevation is abutted by No. 9 Main Street (HB19/05/018). The north side elevation is abutted by No. 5 Main Street (HB19/05/016), and the carriage arch to No. 5 reveals the painted brick and rubblestone north party wall.

Setting and Outbuildings

The building forms part of a terrace of varying house types lining the west side of Main Street at the foot of the hill. To the rear yard there is a single-storey slated garage structure, and to the west a two-storey rubblestone former coach house with a replacement roof and replacement steel casement windows. To the west of these outbuildings stands a single-storey 20th century glasshouse with original brick, timber and glass frame, a piped heating system, and a boiler house. The site extends as a long landscaped garden to the west. Rear access is via the carriage arch to No. 5.

Interior

The house retains much of its original fabric internally, including elements from the 1870s refurbishment and remnants from its long use as a police barracks. The basement still shows evidence of its former use as a cell.

Historical Background

On an early map of Hillsborough dating from around 1800, the site of No. 7 is shown as a gap site. The current house first appears on the 1833 Ordnance Survey map as a simple oblong building. By the 1830s, the Ordnance Survey and Townland Valuation maps show it as a terraced house situated between Nos. 5 and 11 Main Street. The Townland Valuation book records that the house was owned by a Mr James Bradshaw and was valued at £14. A former coach house to the rear already existed at this time, recorded as an L-shaped building on the Townland Valuation map.

By the time of Griffith's Valuation in 1861, the building was in use as the local Royal Irish Constabulary Barracks. This use extended to include No. 5 Main Street, at that time a residence for police constables and formerly the home of the Hillsborough Brewery Manager. Both properties were let from a Mr Hercules Bradshaw, a local magistrate and owner of a distillery in Culcavy, at a joint annual rent of £40. The valuer recorded No. 7 as a first-rate house measuring 15 by 9 yards and two storeys high, along with a small additional house and a number of large offices including the current coach house. Nos. 5 and 7 together were valued at £35 in 1861; by 1878, No. 5 had been listed as a separate dwelling and the Barracks was reduced in value to £24 5s. In 1896, following a period of exemption from valuation as a police premises, the Barracks was bought by the Marquis of Downshire.

The 1901 Ulster Town Directory records that Sergeant Wilson and Constables Lamont, Lynch, Leonard and Boyd were stationed at the Barracks. By 1910, they had been replaced by Sergeant Walker and Constables Noble, Mulholland, Keane and Wilson. There was little further change until the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, after which the Barracks was used as an office for the War Department, remaining in War Department occupation until 1924, likely due to the revolutionary violence prevalent throughout the country in the aftermath of the war. Following partition, the premises continued as the Royal Ulster Constabulary headquarters for the Hillsborough area, and by the end of the Annual Revisions in 1930 the Barracks were valued at £28.

The owners of the building believe it was refurbished around 1878, having found signatures on a wall during their own renovations. The police station operated from these premises until 1938. During the Second World War, the building was used by American soldiers who were lodged in the attic space; at that time an upstairs hall window was blocked up for security reasons, though it has since been reinstated by the current owners. The First Survey of Historical Buildings, however, recorded that the RUC Barracks continued to operate from No. 7 Main Street until 1967.

In 1974, the architectural historian C. E. B. Brett described the house as "a good three-bay two-storey brick house, with uncommonly wide windows, 16-pane Georgian Glazed, semi-circular-headed three-light doorcase with cobweb fan." The building was listed in 1976. The current owners have occupied the house since the 1980s.

The historian S. Walker has noted that No. 7 Main Street was built at the same time as No. 5, but that both were likely built on the foundations of earlier 17th century houses, as "the building material changes from brick to stone beneath the level of the railings, indicating that the street level in this area was raised substantially at some stage." The single-storey heated glasshouse to the west of the outbuildings was built by previous owners and was used in the 20th century to supply vegetables to local residents.