32-34 Castle Street, Lisburn, County Antrim, BT27 4XE

32–34 Castle Street, Lisburn — Former Cathedral Rectory, built circa 1785

This is a three-storey, five-bay mid-terrace former rectory with outbuildings to the rear, built around 1785 on the south side of Castle Street in Lisburn, east of the Market Square. It was constructed by the Reverend William Traill, Rector of Lisburn from 1781 to 1796, as the official residence for the rectors of Lisburn Cathedral, which stands immediately to the south-west. The building shares group value with the Cathedral. Despite modern alterations to the ground floor, the Georgian proportions and character of the original rectory largely survive. The building is currently in use as a gallery.

ARCHITECTURE AND EXTERNAL APPEARANCE

The building is of rectangular plan, with a three- and two-storey rear return. The roof is pitched with natural slate and clay ridge tiles, and the chimneys are a mixture of red brick and render, both replacements. Rainwater goods are uPVC replacements. The walls are laid in red-brick Flemish bond. Windows throughout are one-over-one timber sliding sash with horns, set within masonry cills and single-brick flat-arched heads.

The principal front elevation faces north. The upper two floors have five equally spaced windows. The ground floor is asymmetrical in arrangement: the front door sits at the far left, a pair of glazed shop fronts with individual doors occupies the centre, and at the far right is an elliptical-arched coach entrance with long-and-short surrounds, a moulded cornice at impost level, and a projecting keyblock decorated with an urn. A replacement timber front door was installed as part of ground floor alterations carried out around 1950.

The left gable is abutted by the neighbouring building at 38 Castle Street. The right gable is abutted by two-storey 30 Castle Street, and the upper portion of this gable is blank.

The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged and largely enclosed by various returns and extensions. The coach entrance is to the left, and to the right is a flat-roofed two-storey extension, previously accessed by external steps rising to the half-landing between ground and first floor. A projecting chimney rises over the flat-roofed extension, flanked by single first-floor windows at varying levels and reduced second-floor windows; the central second-floor window is a six-over-three Georgian-style sash. To the right-hand side, a single-bay three-storey return with matching eaves level is further abutted by a secondary three-storey return, both with varying openings largely replaced by casement windows, with one surviving six-over-six Georgian sliding sash. Beyond this, a series of haphazard two-storey outbuildings enclose the rear yard and adjoin the rear return of the neighbouring property at 30 Castle Street.

ALTERATIONS

The ground floor layout and façade were altered in the 1950s when the building was converted to shops. A further phase of alterations, recorded as complete by a pre-listing inspection on 11 March 2014, removed the 1950s shopfront and replaced it with matching brickwork containing three window openings and a door opening aligned with the first- and second-floor sash windows above. The new timber window frames are recessed into the wall and are not visible from the street; they are floor-to-ceiling with no openings. New granite sills and a plinth were installed at the base of the façade. Internally, the ground floor was opened up to form one large gallery space with a small office to the rear. The roof structure of the return was also altered during this phase: the rafters were replaced and a new insulated slate roof installed. The external steps to the rear half-landing were removed, and both the opening off the landing and the rear window were blocked up and rendered over. The six-over-six Georgian window above the door at the landing was replaced by a new timber sash window.

A subsequent inspection on 5 February 2016 found no further changes to the external fabric since the 2014 visit. At that time, the neighbouring property at 38 Castle Street was under scaffolding following chimney collapse, which had caused damage to the roof of 32–34 Castle Street; remedial works to the roof structure and party wall were ongoing.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The rectory was built by the Reverend — later Doctor — William Traill, a Scot of considerable scholarly distinction who had been appointed Professor of Mathematics at Marischal College, Aberdeen at the age of only twenty. On becoming Rector of Lisburn, Traill took on responsibility for paving the town's streets as well as initiating the construction of a new dwelling house for the cathedral's rectors. He presented a memorial to build a new glebe house in 1781 and was granted a site in perpetuity by the Marquess of Hertford. Building began on 28 May 1784, Traill having raised £600 for the purpose. The debt incurred in building the house passed successively to Dr Cupples and Dean Stannus, subsequent Rectors, and then to the Irish Church Temporalities Commissioners. It was finally settled after disestablishment in 1871, when the Representative Church Body repaid the outstanding debt and carried out repairs to the house.

Griffith's Valuation records the occupier as Mary Vaughan, renting the house from the Very Reverend James Stannus. It was listed as a house, offices and yard valued at £44. Although the rectory remained in church ownership at this time, Dean Stannus — a wealthy man — appears to have lived elsewhere. By the census of 1901, the Reverend William D. Pounden, Rector of Lisburn from 1884 to 1917, was resident in the house. At that point it was recorded as a first-class dwelling containing nineteen rooms. Pounden, a native of County Galway, lived with his niece from County Wexford and two domestic staff — a cook and a general servant. By 1911, at the age of eighty, he remained in residence with his niece and the same cook, Isabella Ewart. This period is captured in a photograph from the early 1900s.

In 1926 the house was still in use as the cathedral rectory, but was sold as a private residence at some point in the following decades. Between 1953 and 1972 it was the home of James Leslie Boyle, a well-known local jeweller and optician, and it was during this period in the 1950s that the ground floor was converted to shops.

SETTING

To the front, the building faces a predominantly historic townscape of adjoining and opposite Georgian terraces along Castle Street, though some buildings have been replaced with modern structures. To the rear, the property opens onto a yard enclosed by a variety of two-storey outbuildings and converted offices. The building lies within a conservation area.