Irish Linen Centre & Lisburn Museum, Market Square, Lisburn, BT28 1AG

Lisburn Market House — now the Irish Linen Centre and Lisburn Museum

This is a detached, multi-bay, two-storey stucco-fronted former market house with a clock tower, set on a triangular island site in the centre of Lisburn City on Market Square, surrounded by hard landscaping on all sides. The building originates in the late 17th century, was remodelled around 1810 with a replacement clock tower, remodelled again around 1890 to give its present appearance, and restored around 1994 for use as a linen centre and museum, at which time a large modern west wing was added.

Architectural Description

The building is rectangular on plan, with the clock tower to the west, a breakfront elevation to the east, and a central recessed section to the north and south elevations. The roofs are M-profile hipped natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles, lead valleys and lead hips, set behind a parapet wall with dentilated eaves to a cornice supporting ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering. Downpipes are square-profile cast iron. The chimneystacks are rendered, with cornice copings and terracotta pots.

The external walls are painted render with rusticated rendered quoins. All window and door openings have architrave surrounds with keystones, and there is a continuous impost moulding to the ground floor. At first floor level a continuous sill moulding runs beneath the windows, with a balustrade to all corner windows continuing as a balustrade parapet to the recessed sections on the north and south elevations.

First floor windows have segmental-headed openings with horizontally-glazed 2-over-2 timber sash windows. Ground floor windows have round-headed openings with masonry sills, set within arched recesses, fitted with 3-over-6 timber sash windows incorporating fanlights.

The Clock Tower

The neo-classical sandstone ashlar clock tower with copper cupola rises from the west elevation, its base enclosed within a double-height glazed entrance hall. It is built on the square-plan redbrick and squared red sandstone foundation of a 17th-century tower. Above roof level the present tower has three stages.

The lower stage is square on plan, with a large round-headed window opening to each side, each fitted with a replacement 10-over-15 timber sash window incorporating a fanlight. A cornice at the top of this stage supports an octagonal middle stage with a clock face to four sides; the other four sides have paired Corinthian columns on plinth blocks supporting a full entablature with a fluted frieze, which steps out over the columns and supports an urn on a base above. These urns front four sides of the upper stage, while the other four sides have a louvred oculus. A small cornice moulding above forms the base to the replacement pointed copper dome and copper spirelet.

East Elevation

The east elevation has a single-bay breakfront with a single segmental-headed window opening to the first floor, an architrave surround, and a segmental pediment supported on a pair of console brackets with slender panels below. At ground floor level there is a tripartite arrangement of arched window openings: the central opening has a further tripartite arrangement of round-headed windows and elaborate foliate stuccowork to the recess. The architrave surrounds drop to the plinth course, with masonry sills and iron grilles to each opening. The recessed bays to either side have a window opening to the first floor as described above, and a blind arched panel to the ground floor.

North and South Elevations

The north and south elevations are almost identical, each with a balustrade parapet to the recessed central section. The north elevation has a single central round-headed door opening with a pair of Doric columns on plinth blocks supporting a plain entablature and a batwing fanlight above, fitted with a replacement timber panelled door. The south elevation has two round-headed door openings, each with a replacement timber panelled door, a lintel cornice, and a batwing fanlight.

Historical Background

The origins of the building are complex and have been subject to some debate. The first known map of the town of Lisnegarvey shows a rectangular building on this site labelled as a schoolhouse. By 1641 a market house on or near the site is recorded as the scene of fierce fighting during the rebellion of that year. A market house built by Maurice Griffiths "at his own expense" is documented in letters to Lord Conway in 1666, though it is not certain whether this is the same building or a replacement. For some time it was thought the market house was entirely destroyed in the great fire of 1707 that engulfed the town, but research by Mackey (1986–7) concludes that walls of red sandstone with arches exposed during the conversion to a museum may indeed date from the 17th century, and the base of a square tower still survives in front of the present tower.

Mackey gives a conjectural drawing of the market house as rebuilt after the fire of 1707: a simple two-storey hall with an arcade below and a bell tower. He notes that the earlier steeple was rebuilt around 1772, and that the present tower and cupola were erected around 1808 in a slightly different position, which necessitated alteration of the roof, giving it a lower central ridge. The tower and cupola were built by David McBlain and his son James, at the behest of the Marquess of Hertford, who also had the market house arches closed up and two new wings added. These new rooms were used to store market produce and for a gymnasium, lending library, and reading room.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs describe the older market house as having "3 large arch gates on either side and 1 on the east end, all through which carts, cars etc could pass and repass on market days," noting that the gates were closed up with boards during "the last rebellion of Ireland, to form a temporary barrack and stand for the cavalry and infantry." Subsequently, the gates were closed up with stone and lime and the lower part divided into separate apartments. The Memoirs later describe the improved building as "a fine building" with "its handsome cupola and clock, erected and kept in repair by the Marquis of Hertford," noting a spacious and elegant assembly room above where a ball was formerly held every fortnight, and recording a recently fitted gymnasium in the lower part. The building is shown as "Market House" on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833 and was valued at £40 in the Townland Valuation of 1828–40, rising to £55 in Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64.

Dances, dinners, and other public meetings were regularly held in the assembly rooms; John Wesley preached there in 1756.

In 1888 the market house was remodelled again, assuming its present form, with four additional rectangular towers added to the first floor, and balustrading, moulding, and additional ornamentation applied. This work was paid for by Sir Richard Wallace at a total cost of £2,000, including a bell and illuminated clock dial; Mackey believes John MacHenry would have supervised the works. In 1901, Wallace's heir Sir John Murray Scott gave the building to Lisburn Urban Council. By 1922 it was still recorded in use as assembly rooms, a caretaker's apartment, a newsroom, and a billiard room. In 1979 a decision was made to convert it to a museum, which opened in 1981.

Since the rebuilding of the market house in 1708, houses and shops were built up against its west end. These were gradually taken over by George Duncan and Sons, a drapery business. George Duncan was a muslin manufacturer who opened a Woollen and Manchester (cotton) Warehouse in one of the shops in 1835, eventually expanding so that his business entirely fronted Market Square. By the early 20th century the store had been remodelled with what has been described as an "exuberant Edwardian Arts and Crafts exterior."

In 1994 the museum building was extended to designs by Chaplin Hall Black Douglas. The extension houses the Linen Centre, a focus for the study of the linen industry in Ireland, and has won several awards including the RIBA Regional Award, an RIAI Regional Award, and a Civic Trust Award.

The building is also a monument and lies within a conservation area.