2 Graham Place, Sloan Street, Lisburn, BT27 5AH

A mid-terrace three-bay two-storey with attic-storey redbrick house built around 1860, located on the south side of Sloan Street. The tallest house in a terrace of six forming Graham Place, it displays good style and proportions with interesting late 19th-century detailing including polychromatic brick, decorative doorcases and timber sash windows. The building makes an important contribution to the heritage of the Sloan Street area.

The front elevation is laid in Flemish bond with cement pointing and features a rendered plinth course and yellowbrick crenellation motif to the eaves. Three bays contain square-headed window openings with painted rendered reveals, painted masonry sills and timber sash windows, some with horizontal glazing bars. The central door opening has a smooth render surround with a flat-panelled timber door and iron door furniture, flanked by a pair of foliate console brackets supporting a stepped lintel cornice and semi-circular frame to an overlight with glazed spandrels. The door opens onto three concrete steps to the front pavement.

The roof is of artificial slate with black clay ridge tiles. Redbrick chimneys rise from either gable end with clay pots, though the western stack was rebuilt in brown brick. Plastic guttering runs to yellowbrick corbelled eaves.

Other elevations are cement rendered. The east gable, abutted by number 1 Graham Place, rises above the roof line with a single attic window opening containing a 3/3 timber sash window. The three-bay rear elevation includes a single-storey flat-roofed extension and early 6/6 timber sash windows with cylinder glass. Below eaves level is a further window opening to the second half-landing with a 3/3 timber sash window with margin lights. The west gable, abutted by number 3 Graham Place, also rises above the roof line and contains a pair of small attic window openings with 3/3 timber sash windows.

The house was built in the early 1860s by the Graham family on land leased from the Marquis of Hertford. It does not appear on the Ordnance Survey map of 1858 but is first shown on the third edition map of around 1900. Griffith's Valuation of 1863 lists the site as 'building ground' occupied by David and Robert Graham, and the Annual Revisions for 1863 show the house listed as the residence of David and Robert Graham as part of a terrace called Graham's Place, valued at £15 with neighbouring houses valued at £6, £4 10s and £4 10s respectively. It appears the row was built and let out by the Grahams. By 1881 Stewart Sloan occupied number 2, but by 1887 the house had returned to the Graham family under Mary Graham. The house remained in the family until 1901 when James McKeown became occupier and made improvements that year, raising the valuation to £18. Field inspection confirms remodelling around 1900. McKeown was listed in the Belfast and Ulster Street Directory of 1900 as a spirit dealer of Sloan Street.

Although the setting has been somewhat compromised by modernisation of the surrounding streetscape, the height, intactness of original fabric and subtle detailing of this building secure its importance within the Sloan Street heritage context.