Navigation House, 148 Hillsborough Road, Lisburn, Co Antrim, BT27 5QY

Navigation House

Navigation House is a detached three-bay, two-storey polychromatic brick villa built around 1866 for the Canal Manager of the Lagan Navigation Company. It stands on the west side of Hillsborough Road, Lisburn, close to the M1 flyover, on a secluded landscaped site accessed via a curved laneway from the road. It is the only canal manager's house on the Lagan Navigation and a well-preserved remnant of a period when the Lagan Navigation was probably the most commercially successful of all the waterway enterprises in Ulster.

The listing extends to the house itself, the outbuilding, the gate screen, and the yard walling.

Architectural Description

The house is rectangular on plan, facing east, with an enclosed yard and a two-storey brick outbuilding to the rear. The roof is a pitched natural slate construction with roll-moulded red clay ridge tiles and two original polychromatic brick chimney stacks. The eaves overhang and expose the timber rafter ends, with a moulded timber fascia, boarded timber soffit, and ogee-profile timber brackets at the gables. Rainwater goods are cast metal.

The walls are red brick laid in Flemish bond, with yellow brick string course at first-floor cill level, yellow brick quoins at the corners, and a yellow brick plinth. The windows throughout are single-glazed timber one-over-one sliding sash with horns, painted white, set on rectangular sandstone cills beneath one-and-a-half brick flat arches.

The principal east-facing elevation is symmetrically arranged. At first-floor level there are three equally spaced windows. At ground floor, a centrally positioned front door is flanked by two windows. The front door surround is particularly ornate: a painted timber four-panel door with a rectangular fixed fanlight above, flanked on each side by two pairs of Doric pilasters with a slim vertical one-over-one fixed sidelight between each pair, the whole supporting an entablature with plain fascias and an ogee moulding. The door is approached by two stone steps. A metal guarding rail and a porch wall light were added in the 20th century.

The south-facing left side elevation has a small single-storey extension and is largely obscured by overgrown foliage at ground level. The north-facing right side elevation has a single window set off-centre at ground floor. The west-facing rear elevation is not directly accessible and is reached via the enclosed yard.

The outbuilding and yard walls are red brick laid in English garden wall bond. The outbuilding is two storeys with a pitched natural slate roof with black slate ridge tiles, metal rainwater goods, single-glazed metal windows, and painted timber boarded doors.

The interior retains most of its original features, and the building also retains most of its original external features.

Gate Screen and Setting

The site is entered from Hillsborough Road through a gate screen comprising wrought iron gates hung on square brick piers with stone caps with ogee moulding, flanked by a symmetrical pair of curved brick screen walls capped with stone coping and terminating in smaller brick piers with ogee stone caps. The site is largely bounded by tall mature trees. To the north there is a glasshouse and a small painted timber garden shed. The listed former Lock Keeper's House and the scheduled Union Locks canal structures lie on the adjacent site to the north, with which Navigation House has group value. A modern house occupies the adjacent site to the south.

Historical Background

The Lagan Navigation was constructed in the 18th century and comprises two distinct sections. The first section, between Belfast and Lisburn, used the River Lagan supplemented by short stretches of still-water canal cuts with associated weirs and locks to bypass obstacles in the natural river channel. Work on this section began in 1756 under the direction of engineer Thomas Omer. The second section was an entirely still-water canal passing close to Moira, through Aghalee, and on to Lough Neagh. In 1779 a private company, the Company of Undertakers of the Lagan Navigation, was established, and in 1782 English engineer Richard Owen was employed to direct construction of the second section. This section carried the navigation up through four locks — the Union Locks — raising it 26 feet over 100 yards to a summit level extending for eleven miles to Aghalee. A basin was located between the middle two locks. The Union Locks are the only flight of four locks in Ireland. The summit level canal crossed the River Lagan near Spencer's Bridge via an aqueduct built between 1782 and 1785, which was demolished in the 20th century during the construction of the M1 motorway; a central section of the canal approximately 12.5 kilometres in length between Sprucefield and Moira was also lost at that time.

In 1843 control of the navigation and canal passed from the Company of Undertakers to the Lagan Navigation Company. Of all the waterway enterprises in the north of Ireland, it was the most commercially successful, particularly on the Belfast to Lisburn section where a number of large mills were served. The Lisburn to Lough Neagh section continued to operate until 1947. Navigation House and its associated office first appear on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of around 1900, captioned as Navigation House; the earlier first and second edition maps show only the locks and the adjoining lock house.

The longstanding lock keeper at the Union Locks was James Ritchie. The area is reported to have been popular with local people, and children would jump aboard passing lighters and ride as far as Lisburn and Hilden. George Lynch moved into Navigation House as superintendent/manager in 1909; it is reported that his possessions were transported by lighter from Monaghan along the Ulster Canal, across Lough Neagh, and along the Lagan. Michael Wallace Kidd was the last superintendent, in post from 1928 to 1954. His granddaughter Jenny Pearce recalls how he "had a motorbike, with sidecar, which he would use to travel up and down the towpath." The Lagan Navigation Company was dissolved in 1954 and its assets transferred to the Ministry of Commerce. In the same year the canal and Union Locks were officially abandoned. In 1958 the navigation between Belfast and Lisburn was also abandoned.

A Building Preservation Notice was served on this property on 20th June 2012.