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

29 Main Street, Hillsborough

A Grade B2 listed terraced house of early nineteenth-century date, constructed between 1803 and 1833. The building is a two-storey dwelling with attic, built in snecked uncoursed basalt walling with redbrick surrounds to all openings. It forms one of a pair within a terrace of four similarly scaled houses lining the east side of Main Street at its elevated end where the street meets The Square. The north gable fronts onto a shared gravel access lane.

The building retains its original Georgian proportions, though external features are replacement. The pitched natural slate roof features black clay ridge tiles and cast-iron guttering on iron brackets to the brick eaves course. A shared redbrick chimneystack serves the north side. A modern dormer sits to the rear pitch, and a flat-roofed single-storey extension with timber decking was added to the rear, documented as in place by 1989.

The front elevation is two windows wide. Camber-headed window and door openings are formed in redbrick with painted masonry sills. The ground floor has a replacement bipartite timber sash window. The central camber-headed door opening contains a replacement timber panelled door with replacement overlight, opening onto a granite step. The upper storey retains a camber-headed window opening. The rear elevation features a UPVC window to the gabled attic dormer and a multi-pane timber glazed door opening onto the decked area, with a further 6/6 replacement timber sash window. The south side elevation is abutted by adjoining No. 31, and the north side by adjoining No. 27.

The house has significant group value with Nos. 27 and 31 Main Street, all three buildings erected on the same plot of land at the same period, valued at £6 in the 1830s Townland Valuation, and contributing to the overall character of Hillsborough.

Historical context

The house was constructed on land owned by a Mr Robinson, recorded as the occupant of Hill House in 1803. It is depicted on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833 and the Townland Valuation plan as a small square building at the top of Main Street. The 1830s Townland Valuation records the house was occupied by Mr John Armstrong.

By Griffith's Valuation of 1861, the house was owned by Mr Thomas Ingram, who also owned No. 27. The property was let to Mr Thomas Stafford at £8 rent. The valuer recorded it as a 1a-class dwelling measuring six by seven yards and two storeys high, valued at £6 10s. From 1861 to 1930, no change in value or discernible alteration appears on the Ordnance Survey maps.

Census and valuation records document successive occupants: Hugh Morrow (1864, previously of No. 31), James Ingram (1864–1879 onwards), and Thomas J. Clarke (1920–1930). James Ingram, born circa 1836, was recorded as a local shoemaker and weigh-master. In 1911 the house was recorded as a second-class shoe shop comprising five or six inhabited rooms. The 1910 Ulster Towns Directory identifies Ingram as weigh-master of the public markets in Hillsborough, likely operating the weigh bridge in the Shambles south of The Square. Ingram died in 1917, leaving effects of £191 15s 6d.

In 1974, architectural historian C. E. B. Brett described No. 29 as one of "four extremely good stone houses (Nos. 27–33), with some brick trim, some galleting, and most of the Georgian glazing intact". The house was listed in 1976. By 1989, the single-storey extension was added at the rear.

The building is situated within Hillsborough conservation area.