Ascert, 23 Bridge Street, Lisburn, County Antrim, Bt28 1XZ

Ascert, 23 Bridge Street, Lisburn

A two-bay three-storey mid-terrace former house, now offices, built around 1730 and located north of Bridge Street in Lisburn town centre. The building is rectangular on plan.

The exterior was restored in recent years under the Lisburn Historic Quarter Initiative (2001). The pitched roof is covered with natural slate and fitted with blue and black angled ridge tiles. Early rendered chimneystacks with terracotta pots rise from the roof. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are fitted to corbelled eaves. The walling is painted smooth render with quoins.

The principal elevation faces south and is three windows wide to the upper floors. Windows to the first floor are 4/4 timber-framed sliding sash, whilst those to the second floor are diminished 3/3 sash with projecting masonry sills. The second floor has a 6/3 window to far left and right, and a diminutive window to the right of centre. The ground floor shop front has been infilled with modern timber casement windows, modern timber doors to far left and right, and is surmounted by a modern sign board with painted lettering. The west elevation is abutted by an adjoining building. The south elevation is partially concealed.

The interior has been completely refurbished to accommodate modern offices, and the internal floor plan has been substantially altered with little or no historic fabric remaining.

The building is located at the centre of Bridge Street, with Market Square to the west. It is bounded to the rear by the cemetery of Lisburn Cathedral, separated by a cement-rendered rubble stone wall.

Historical context

The area was originally known as Lisnagarvey until the 1660s. It was established in the early seventeenth century when James I granted Sir Fulke Conway the south Antrim manor of Killultagh. Sir Fulke established the headquarters of his Killultagh estates at Lisburn and constructed a timber bridge at the foot of Bridge Street. An early map of Lisburn dating from 1640 shows Bridge Street stretching to this river-crossing with buildings lining both sides.

A disastrous fire in 1707 was followed by rapid rebuilding to the former street plan using improved materials—brick replacing wood, and slates and tiles replacing shingles. Oak beams from 34 Bridge Street, dated by the School of Archaeology and Palaeoecology at Queen's University Belfast, have an estimated felling date of around 1710, indicating that buildings in Bridge Street were among the earliest constructed following the fire.

Little is known of this building's early history. A structure on the site appears on Thomas Pattison's map of 1833. By 1901, the premises was in use as a confectioner's shop run by Joseph McCourtney, described as a sugar and flour confectioner. McCourtney lived above the shop with his English wife and seven children. Two grown-up daughters worked as seamstresses, and his eldest son, Patrick, was working as an apprentice confectioner at the age of fourteen. By 1911, nearly all the younger children had learned to speak Irish and four were known by their Irish names, with the surname transcribed as Mac Cúrnain for boys and Ní Cúrnain for girls. The McCourtneys had sixteen children in total, of whom ten survived, with the elder two sons working as a confectioner and carpenter respectively. Joseph's wife Elizabeth died in 1917 while the family still lived above the shop.

A 1974 photograph by Turner shows the building then known as the Maxi Grill, with the original shop front completely removed by that stage. The current shop front is a replacement. The building is currently in use as offices.

Whilst number 23 is interesting as one of the earliest constructed houses in the street, it does not meet the criteria for listing as it has lost most of its historic fabric. Bridge Street was the most important thoroughfare in the city during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and is of significant social and historic interest.