21 Lisburn Street, Hillsborough, Co Down BT26 6AB

21 Lisburn Street, Hillsborough, County Down

21 Lisburn Street is a former mid-terraced dwelling, built around 1740, now in use as a café. It stands on the east side of Lisburn Street, on the main northern approach road into Hillsborough from Belfast, within the Hillsborough Conservation Area. Of the surviving terrace, No. 21 is the best preserved example, and represents an important early survivor of domestic vernacular architecture in an Ulster context, and more broadly within 18th-century County Down.

Architectural Description

The building is two storeys in height, single bay wide, and rectangular in plan, with a single-storey lean-to addition to the rear.

Roof: The pitched roof is covered in artificial slate to the front (west) and natural slate to the rear (east), with angled clay ridge tiles and a tiled skew over the south party wall. The south party wall rises to a replacement red brick chimneystack. Gutters are half-round metal on brick eaves.

West (Principal) Elevation: The front elevation faces west onto Lisburn Street. The entrance door is offset to the left, with windows aligned to the right. Walling is unrendered random rubble stone with cementitious strap pointing. The windows are timber sliding sashes — a 6-over-6 sash with horns at ground floor level and a 6-over-3 sash at first floor level — both set over painted masonry cills. All openings are formed in brick with smooth cement reveals. The entrance door is a tongue-and-groove sheeted timber replacement, with the original overlight retained but divided into three panes. Granite plinth blocks flank either side of the threshold step, and a brick relieving arch sits over the doorway.

North and South Elevations: Both gable ends are fully abutted by the adjoining terraced houses and are not visible.

East (Rear) Elevation: The rear elevation is more informal in character. A smooth rendered and painted single-storey lean-to with a natural slate roof abuts the right-hand side, partially concealing a painted brick relieving arch that spans almost the full width of the elevation. Access to the rear is via a later pair of fully glazed timber-framed doors set beneath this arch. Above the lean-to, the walling is random rubble bedded in lime mortar; the exposed ground floor section of the rear elevation is painted and rendered. The first floor is lit by two windows: a 3-over-3 fixed pane window with a single inset pivoting panel, and a pivoting eight-light window set into a larger opening — this larger opening pre-dates the lean-to, and the former window frame is visible within later cement infill. Both windows are set flush with the external wall and have timber cills. A tongue-and-groove sheeted door is located on the south cheek of the lean-to, and a 6-over-3 exposed box horned sash faces east on the lean-to itself.

Materials: The roof combines artificial slate to the west and natural slate to the east, with metal rainwater goods. The principal walling is exposed rubble stone with red brick dressings. Windows to the west and the lean-to return are timber sliding sashes; windows to the east are a mix of metal and timber casements.

Setting and Plot

The building fronts directly onto Lisburn Street, with no forecourt. To the rear there is a long, narrow plot with paved and grassed areas currently used for café seating. The plot is bounded at the rear by original rubble stone and brick walls onto the former Wapping Lane. The building sits within the Hillsborough Conservation Area.

Historical Context

The small town of Hillsborough, sometimes referred to as the Killwarlin Estate, was granted a Charter in 1661. Its name derives from Peter Hill, who built Hillsborough Fort in the 1630s to protect the main road between Carrickfergus and Dublin. The area now occupied by Lisburn Street is among the oldest parts of the town and is shown as developed on a sketch map of around 1640 held at the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI). However, the settlement was almost entirely destroyed during the rebellion of 1641, when the native Irish rose against the plantation settlers, and the church, town and fort were rebuilt from 1662 onwards.

The town as it exists today is predominantly an 18th-century creation. Wills Hill (1718–1793), the First Marquis of Downshire, extended and rebuilt much of the town in the Georgian style, largely between around 1750 and 1780. Map evidence drawn from a hand-drawn map of around 1745 and a map of the Hillsborough Estate dated 1771, both held at PRONI, shows that two rows of terraced houses lined either side of the present Lisburn Street at its junction with Main Street. These buildings are thought to have been erected around 1740 and to have included No. 21. This construction date is supported by a passage from Walter Harris's The Ancient and Present State of the County of Down (1744), which appears to describe this row: "…his Lordship has already erected two ranges of commodious houses, to each of which are annexed a garden and a park of five acres, with grounds for bleach greens at a convenient distance…". The current owner has indicated that deeds for the property exist dating from the 1730s, though these were not available for inspection at the time of survey.

The terrace is first shown clearly on the Town Plan of 1800 at PRONI, where it lines the eastern side of what was then called Great Newport Street, with garden plots to the rear bounded by terraced outbuildings fronting onto Wapping Lane. The street's former name reflects the anticipated prosperity that the opening of the Lagan Canal in 1794 was expected to bring, with a 'new port' located approximately one mile from the town. Despite construction costs exceeding £70,000, the canal never fulfilled this potential, being poorly designed and underfunded.

The subdivision and ownership of the terrace in the early 19th century remains unclear. The Townland Valuation records and associated map of around 1834 show a group of seven properties valued at £4 8s and £3 10s, bookended by larger houses to the north and south valued at around £7 14s. No. 21 may have been one of the properties valued at £3 10s, or it may have formed part of a larger building that was later reconfigured and subdivided. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1837 describe Lisburn Street as 40 feet wide and 220 yards long, containing 58 dwelling houses in total — 55 of which were two storeys, 2 were three storeys, and 1 was single storey — all slated and built mostly of stone or a combination of stone and brick.

Griffith's Valuation of 1861 records the property as No. 10 (later renumbered No. 21, around 1900), comprising a house with a small return to the rear, an outbuilding and yard, occupied by a Roger Magowan as a tenant of the Marquis of Downshire, with the buildings valued at £4. The Annual Revisions from 1864 to 1930 record multiple changes of occupier, while the footprint remained largely unchanged, save for the removal of the outbuildings from the rear yard at some point between 1909 and 1935. The valuation remained static until the First General Revision of around 1935, when the house and yard rose in value to £6 5s. This value persisted through the Annual Revisions from 1936 to 1957, during which period a Samuel Lilly is recorded as occupier from 1923 until at least 1957. The internal arrangement has since been reconfigured for its current use as a coffee shop and restaurant.

Although the building retains some replacement fabric — which is generally sympathetic to the age and character of the building — No. 21 Lisburn Street is considered to retain early historic fabric including historic masonry, sliding sash windows and some interior joinery. It is notable for its age in an Ulster context and its survival as a modest but genuine example of 18th-century domestic vernacular architecture in County Down.