Roses Lane Ends Former Post Office, 43 Crumlin Road, Ballinderry Upper, Lisburn, County Antrim, BT28 2JX

Roses Lane Ends Former Post Office

A detached corner-sited two-storey lime-rendered former post office built around 1830, situated at a crossroads in Ballymacrevan townland near Ballinderry Upper in County Antrim.

The building is rectangular on plan, facing south onto Crumlin Road, with a single-bay two-storey rendered accretion abutting the east gable on the north side of Crumlin Road. It is constructed of rubblestone walling with rough-cast lime render and sits on a pitched natural slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles. Two redbrick chimneystacks with redbrick parged verges are present, and plastic rainwater goods have been installed.

The front elevation features randomly-placed square-headed window and door openings with redbrick linings, timber lintels and concrete sills. Windows are now largely boarded up, though remnants of multi-pane timber sash windows survive on the rear elevation. An enclosed front area at lower level than the road is bounded by a rendered wall with stone coping. A cast-iron wall-mounted post-box, still in use, with raised lettering reading 'E R II' and royal insignia, is mounted to the west end of this wall.

The west gable is blank lime rendered with a redbrick chimneystack. The north rear elevation has randomly-placed square-headed window openings, now blocked with concrete blocks, with multi-pane timber sash windows to the first floor and a timber casement to the ground floor. A blocked square-headed door opening is also present. The east gable, abutted by a two-storey bay with natural slate roof and lime-rendered walling, contains a square-headed loading bay to each floor with sheeted timber doors.

The first Ordnance Survey map of 1832 records a single oblong building at the village crossroads at Roses Lane Ends. No structural changes are visible in subsequent editions until 1901, when the third edition identifies it as a Post Office. According to Griffith's Valuation of 1856 to 1864, the building was owned by Arthur Thompson and let to Edward Hopes, valued at £6 with no change by the end of the Annual Revisions in 1912.

The property temporarily fell vacant in 1863 and was noted as 'out of repair', but was soon restored and occupied by Edward Johnston for a number of years until Samuel Patterson took possession in 1889. Writing in 1888, Bassett described Roses Lane Ends as a 'rural post office on a hill commanding a beautiful view of Lough Neagh', with Mr H. Patterson listed as the Post Master. The building again became vacant in 1897 until Hugh Clenaghan took possession in 1903, being replaced in 1910 by Albert Peel, who purchased the property outright. By 1911 the post office was operating as a general shop, occupied by Samuel Buchanan. The census building return recorded it as a first-class building comprising 12 occupied rooms, with a stable, cow house, shed and two stores as rear outoffices, which have since been demolished. Charles Brett described the building as a 'late-Georgian shop and dwelling, perhaps of about 1820'.

The building is set at a crossroads with its front elevation fronting onto Crumlin Road and its east gable fronting onto Lough Road. It forms part of a collection of disused nineteenth-century commercial buildings serving the local rural community.

The building was listed in 1992 when still in use as a post office. Photographs from September 2009 show it in poor repair and vacant with boarded-up windows. Recent field research confirms it has deteriorated significantly, overgrown with ivy and moss, though it retains its traditional external materials. The small wall-mounted post-box at the west end remains in continued use. Now vacant, this former post office represents an important commercial and social element for the local rural community.