13 Castle Street, Lisburn, County Antrim, BT27 4SP

13 Castle Street, Lisburn

This is a three-storey, three-bay former Georgian mid-terrace townhouse erected in the 18th century (constructed between 1760 and 1779), located directly off Castle Street east of Market Square and west of Lisburn College in the town centre.

The building makes a positive contribution to the Georgian character of Lisburn town centre, despite its proximity to some modern replacement buildings. The front façade has retained much of its original proportions and style, though little historic fabric of interest survives throughout the rest of the building as a result of inappropriate alterations and significant internal alteration.

The pitched roof is covered in artificial slate with clay ridge tiles and uPVC replacement rainwater goods. A rendered chimney stack with corbelled upper course supports various pots. The walls are rendered with ruled-and-lined finish. The principal elevation faces south and is asymmetrically arranged. The splendid doorway features an elliptical arched opening with a plain moulded surround, embracing a timber four-panel raised-and-pointed door with bolection mouldings and brass ironmongery. It is flanked by Doric columns rising to an entablature with mouldings, and a rolled glass paned fanlight with moulded surrounds and shell-decorated hood above. The front door is positioned on the right; to the left is a glazed shopfront with non-illuminated signage. Three uniformly arranged first floor windows with diminished second floor windows directly over are 6/6 Georgian sliding sash windows with rectangular masonry cills; the second floor windows have been replaced in uPVC.

The left gable is abutted by an adjoining three-storey building. The rear elevation is fully abutted by a three-storey gable-ended return comprising various openings, mostly replaced or blocked up, with a chimney at the gable apex. Evidence remains of a ground floor return that has been removed and replaced by a shallow pitched modern single-storey building. The right gable is abutted by an adjoining modern two-storey building.

The immediate setting to the front is the predominantly historic townscape of adjoining and opposite Georgian terraces, although some buildings have been replaced with modern structures. The rear of the building opens to a large yard converted into carparking, with access through a carriageway located in the adjoining building. A plaque (HB19/13/017) that was formerly fixed to the building in the rear yard has been removed.

The building occupies a significant place in local tradition. It is said to have been the home, in the late 17th century, of both the theologian Bishop Jeremy Taylor and subsequently of the Williamite general, the Duke of Schomberg, though the veracity of these claims is difficult to establish. Both bishop and soldier are known to have lived in a house on Castle Street for a time, but the fire of 1707 likely destroyed any fabric they would have been familiar with, even though most townspeople are thought to have rebuilt on the same sites. An outbuilding formerly at the rear bore a plaque with a coat of arms featuring a shield surmounted by a sheaf of corn and an illegible motto; both the building and plaque are now lost.

Jeremy Taylor was born in 1613 in Cambridge and attended Gonville and Caius College, becoming a royal chaplain and influential theological writer. In the late 1650s he met the third Viscount Conway and Killultagh, who became his patron and persuaded him to move to Ireland. Taylor was consecrated Bishop of Down and Connor in January 1661 but lived at Portmore (Lord Conway's residence) and at his own house in Magheralin until 1664, when ill health forced him to move to a house in Castle Street. In August 1667 he contracted a fever while visiting the sick and died at his home ten days later.

Frederick Herman von Schomberg, 1st Duke of Schomberg, was born in Heidelberg in 1615 and became a soldier at eighteen, serving with distinction in European campaigns. In 1688 he became commander of the Dutch army under William of Orange. After the successful invasion of England that toppled James II, he was rewarded by parliament, appointed commander of land forces in England, and created a duke. In August 1689 he was sent to fight James in Ireland and during military preparations for the Battle of the Boyne that winter, Schomberg made Lisburn his headquarters. He is said to have occupied the house formerly lived in by Bishop Jeremy Taylor twenty-two years earlier.

The current building was probably constructed as a dwelling house in the aftermath of the 1707 fire. The shopfront is a later addition, probably from the twentieth century. A building on the site is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833. According to Fred Kee's Lisburn Miscellany, the house was occupied for some years leading up to the 1970s by the Wilson family, who donated a large silk scarf formerly belonging to General Nicholson to Lisburn Museum. Nicholson was killed in the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and became a hero to generations of Victorian boys; he is commemorated by a statue in Market Square. In the 1970s the house was used as a bakery and is presently in use as a gallery.