2-4 Lower Ballinderry Road, Upper Ballinderry, Lisburn, County Antrim, BT28 2EP

This is a prominent and substantial three-storey, seven-bay former grain store and warehouse dating from before 1832, with clear evidence of development and enlargement throughout the first half of the 19th century. It stands at the junction of Lower Ballinderry Road and North Street in Lower Ballinderry, and is rectangular on plan. What began as three or possibly four separate buildings has been converted for commercial use and now functions as two units. Despite some interior alterations, the complex evolution of plan form and building use makes this an architecturally and historically significant complex, reflecting the industrial, agricultural and commercial development of the local area.

EXTERIOR

The roof is pitched natural slate with raised concrete verges and seven rendered brick chimneystacks without pots. A slightly lower roof pitch over the two westernmost bays indicates that this section was added later, around 1840. Rainwater goods are half-round cast iron to the west and replacement aluminium to the east. The south elevation walling is exposed random rubble stonework to the west and roughcast render to the east — the exposed stonework to the west suggesting that a first and second floor were added here, also around 1840. The east gable is roughcast rendered; the west gable and south elevation are exposed rubble stonework with evidence of surviving lime render. Windows are generally 6/6 timber-framed sliding sash with painted projecting stone sills. Doors are double-leaf ledged timber sheeted.

PRINCIPAL ELEVATION

The principal elevation faces south, is sixteen openings wide, and can be clearly read as four originally separate buildings, each with slightly different fenestration and architectural character.

From the west, the first section is a three-and-a-half-storey two-bay block built before 1832 and raised around 1840. It contains a painted timber multi-panelled door set off-centre to the right, flanked by a blocked-up opening. At first, second and attic floor levels there are four square-headed, vertically divided timber casement windows, each set within a recessed segmental-headed opening with brick voussoirs.

The next section moving east is four windows wide. It features a square-headed double-leaf timber-sheeted door in a cambered opening, set off-centre to the right within a partially built-up segmental carriage arch with brick voussoirs. This is flanked by irregularly spaced square-headed 12-pane timber casement windows, each within a recessed segmental-headed opening with brick voussoirs. Four windows of similar detail appear at first and second floor level. Original signage and a light survive at first floor centre. Notably, the window levels in this section differ from those in the two western bays, indicating this is an earlier building than the section to its west.

The next two bays are rendered, with a central square-headed timber-sheeted door flanked by a single window on each side, and three equally spaced windows at first and second floor.

The easternmost two bays contain a timber-sheeted door at ground floor flanked by two 8/8 timber sliding sash windows with exposed boxes to the right and a single window to the left, with four 6/6 timber sliding sash windows with exposed boxes at first and second floor. The entrance is surmounted by a cast-metal hanging signage panel. At the south-west corner, a chamfered detail extends through ground and first floor and contains an entrance door surmounted by an 8/8 timber-sheeted window with an exposed box at first floor level.

OTHER ELEVATIONS

The west gable is abutted at ground floor by a lean-to extension with a corrugated metal sheeted roof, and to the right by a smooth rendered boundary wall with segmental terracotta coping and square brick piers enclosing a yard to the rear.

The rear elevation is in poor condition: most windows have been removed and boarded up, lime render is partially stripped away and many original openings have been altered. At centre, the building is abutted by a double-height corrugated metal warehouse used for storage.

The east gable contains two 8/8 timber sliding sash windows with exposed boxes at ground floor and is adjoined to the north by a stepped boundary wall containing an elliptical-arched vehicular entrance with painted stepped quoins and voussoirs. The rendered boundary wall extends to the north and incorporates exposed random rubble walling and three segmental-arched openings.

SETTING

The building sits on the road frontage to the north side of Lower Ballinderry Road, with boundary walls to the south and east enclosing a large site. To the north is a series of single-storey outbuildings aligned north to south, with pitched natural slate roofs, exposed rubble stonework and timber-sheeted doors, currently used as workshops. The north elevation is abutted by single- and two-storey modern warehouse extensions of little architectural interest. The complex is included within the Upper Ballinderry Area of Village Character.

HISTORY

The buildings, now known as Ballinderry Antiques and Ballinderry China, were originally used as grain lofts and warehouses. They appear on the first Ordnance Survey maps of Ballinderry (1832) as an oblong structure at the crossroads of Lower Ballinderry Road and North Street. The Townland Valuation of 1837 records that Thomas Walkington of the nearby Oatland Cottage owned the buildings, which were two storeys tall at that time and valued at only £4 2s 10d. The stores were likely enlarged between 1832 and 1859, when the rateable value rose significantly to £22 and the building appears slightly extended at both west and east ends on later mapping. Site inspection suggests that there were initially three buildings, with the westernmost section and an extension to the easterly section added between 1832 and 1859; the entire length was probably raised by a storey at the same time.

By 1859, Griffith's Valuation records the buildings as let by Walkington to Messrs W. J. and T. Cummins. They occupied the property until 1874, when a Mr Alexander Taylor took possession and Samuel Walkington became the new landlord following his father's death in that year. In 1881 a Mr Robert Marshall came into possession of the buildings, which had by then been devalued to £16. Census records show that Robert Marshall, born around 1854, was a local farmer and grocer. There was no further change to the valuation of the warehouses until the close of the Annual Revisions for the area in 1929.

The original grain silos survive and are situated at the rear corner of the westernmost building. According to Charles Brett's Buildings of County Antrim (Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1996), a shooting range was established at the rear of the buildings in 1912 to train local men of the Ulster Volunteer Force. The site was later used as a camp for British soldiers and American GIs during the Second World War, and subsequently held German prisoners of war. The whole building was listed in 1991 and renovations were carried out in 1999.