Maze Station Hotel, 228 Moira Road, Lisburn, County Antrim, BT28 2TP

Maze Station Hotel is a detached, three-bay, two-storey former hotel and public house built around 1830, situated on the north side of Moira Road at its junction with Cross Lane, Lisburn, in the townland of Teraghafeeva or Lissue. The building is rectangular in plan with a single-storey return projecting to the north. Although its external character has been significantly altered through replacement doors and windows, and its original outbuildings have been lost, some original internal detailing survives, including an original fireplace with a decorative cast-iron inset. A pair of original electric petrol pumps, dating from the mid-20th century, survives in a recess in the boundary wall adjacent to the west gable. The building retains social significance to the local community, though it does not meet the criteria for listing.

Exterior

The roof is pitched natural slate with crested terracotta ridge tiles. There are two corbelled, smooth-rendered chimneystacks, each carrying three terracotta pots. Rainwater goods are replacement uPVC on timber fascia. The walls are pebble-dashed with smooth-rendered painted quoins, a smooth-rendered sill course at first-floor level, and a painted smooth-rendered plinth. Windows throughout are replacement square-headed timber casements set within smooth-rendered painted reveals with lugged architraves, projecting keyblocks, and painted projecting masonry sills, except where noted otherwise. Doors are replacement timber panelled designs in matching surrounds.

The principal elevation faces south and is four windows wide with equal spacing. At ground-floor level, two windows sit to the left; to the right, a replacement timber panelled door with a transom light is flanked on its right by a bowed timber-framed window with crown glass, set within a larger opening of similar detail. The east gable contains a double-leaf principal entrance at the right, accessed by descending two diagonal steps into the building. At the centre of this gable, high-level smooth-rendered walling encloses a yard to the north. The first floor of the east gable is blank, with mock timber nogging and rendered panels rising to the apex. On the west gable, there is an enlarged bowed casement window to the left, a second window to the right, and a single window at first-floor level to the right. The enlarged window is surmounted by signage reading "MAZE STATION HOTEL 1837", with individual letters enclosed by a torus-moulded frame on a pebble-dash background and a cast-metal wall light above. The west gable apex also has timber nogging and rendered panels. The rear elevation, to which full access was not provided, is abutted to the left by the single-storey return and elsewhere by a series of single-storey modern extensions of little interest; three windows are visible at first-floor level. The north gable is blank and is abutted to the left by a roughcast-rendered boundary wall with saddleback coping.

Single-storey return

The single-storey return to the north has an asbestos-tiled roof with clay ridge tiles and a timber fascia carrying replacement u-profile rainwater goods. Its walling and windows match those of the main two-storey block. The east elevation of the return contains two replacement timber entrance doors, each flanked to the right by a timber casement window. The west elevation is abutted by a series of single-storey modern extensions of little interest.

Historical background

A sign on the east gable gives the date 1837, suggesting either the year of construction or the year the hotel first began operating. However, the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–33 already shows a large oblong building, or possibly a range of buildings, along the north side of Moira Road, with two L-shaped outbuildings to the rear and several smaller structures to the north-west. By the second edition map of 1858 the layout had changed little. Griffith's Valuation of 1861 divides the range into two records: the western section, valued at £8, was occupied by a Thomas Young, while the eastern section — now the hotel — was occupied by James Mooney and valued at £11.

The hotel was built approximately half a kilometre south of the railway station, which was constructed around 1840; the railway line to Portadown first opened in 1842. James Mooney, described in his will as a farmer and publican, resided at the property until his death in 1880, leaving his property and effects of £900 to his widow Mary. Mary Mooney then took over the running of the hotel. The 1901 Census records Mary as a 68-year-old Roman Catholic publican, living with her son Richard Mooney (aged 40, a farmer) and her widowed daughter Alice Mulholland (aged 28). The Census Building Return for that year describes the property as a first-class public house with nine rooms and eleven outoffices, including six stable houses for guests' horses.

By 1905 the property's valuation had been divided between the two-storey hotel, revalued at £7 10s., and a cottier's house to the rear valued at £4. In 1906 the public house passed to a John Montgomery, and in 1907 to a Charles Johnson. The 1911 Census records Johnson, a 49-year-old Anglican, residing there with his wife Elizabeth (aged 46) and their three children. By 1911 the six stables recorded a decade earlier had been replaced by two coach houses and a small number of farm buildings. Also in 1911, ownership of the hotel passed from the Marquis of Hertford to James Drake, a local Catholic farmer, though Charles Johnson continued to reside at the property until the end of the Annual Revisions in 1929.

The third and fourth edition Ordnance Survey maps of 1900 and 1920–21 show little change from the 19th-century layout, but by the time of the current edition map of 1971 all the original rear outbuildings had been demolished, leaving only the two-storey hotel and its single-storey rear return. The Maze Station Hotel is no longer used as a hotel but continues to operate as a public house and is in a good state of preservation.