18 Hillsborough Road, Moira, Craigavon, Co Armagh, BT67 0HG

18 Hillsborough Road, Moira, is a detached three-storey store built in the 1780s in association with the former Lagan Canal. It is of local historical interest as a reminder of the canal's former presence and represents a scarce example of a canal warehouse.

The building is aligned east-west at the eastern end of a farmyard, formerly situated on the north side of a quay on a spur off the Lagan Canal, which ran to its east but is now infilled. It has a pitched natural slate roof with cement verges and limewashed random rubble walls with replacement plastic rainwater goods.

The south elevation, which faced the former quay, has two rows of segmental-headed openings fitted with louvered timber shutters. An old photograph indicates that doorways originally existed at each end of the ground floor, though these appear now to have been infilled. The west gable has a wide segmental-headed doorway with square-headed loading doors to the floors above. The east gable has a segmental-headed window to each of its upper floors. The north (rear) elevation was not inspected during survey.

The store was constructed during the initial development phase of the Lagan Canal extension from Sprucefield to Lough Neagh. The Lagan Navigation between Belfast and Lisburn opened in 1763, but work on the extension from Sprucefield to Lough Neagh did not commence until 1782 under the direction of English canal engineer Richard Owen. Operations began at the summit level and extended downwards at each end. By 1792 the canal reached Aghalee, and by the end of 1793 it had reached Lough Neagh at Ellis's Gut. Harvey's Quay, where the store is located, lies on the summit level as a short spur off the main canal, and was undoubtedly constructed during the first phase of canal works in the 1780s. The adjoining store was probably erected around the same time.

Both store and quay appear on Ordnance Survey six-inch maps from 1833 onwards, with the quay captioned as Harvey's Quay. John Harvey is recorded as occupant of the adjoining house in the mid-1830s First Valuation book. The premises subsequently passed out of the Harvey family; the 1864 Griffith Valuation records James Hammond as tenant under lease from Sir Thomas Bateson. The store's commercial importance is reflected in its relatively high rateable valuation of £13. The quay functioned primarily as a depot for imported coal, a use which would have ceased in 1954 when this section of canal was officially abandoned by the Lagan Navigation Company, which had assumed ownership in 1843. The spur and associated stretch of canal were infilled during the 1960s in connection with construction of the M1 motorway, which follows the line of the former canal between Sprucefield and Moira. The nearby road bridge over the canal (Boyle's Bridge) and aqueduct over the River Lagan were also demolished at this time.