13 Main Street, Hillsborough, County Down, BT26 6AE

13 Main Street is a mid-terrace, two-storey, three-bay early 19th-century house built of random basalt stone with lime mortar, set on the west side of Main Street in Hillsborough. It forms part of a terrace of houses of varying sizes but similar dates that lines this side of the street, and contributes strongly to the Georgian character of the area.

The house is rectangular in plan, facing east, with an integral carriage arch to the northernmost bay, a single-storey rear extension, and a converted former coach-house to the rear of the site. The roof is covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, and there are two rebuilt red brick chimneystacks, one at either end, each fitted with terracotta and octagonal clay pots. A further red brick chimneystack rises from the rear elevation. The eaves are rendered, with replacement cast-iron guttering carried on iron brackets and a cast-iron downpipe. Plastic rainwater goods on iron brackets serve the rear elevation.

The walls are of random basalt with squared pink sandstone quoins. Window openings are square-headed, formed in red brick with sandstone sills, and fitted with replacement six-over-six timber sash windows without horns.

The front east elevation is four windows wide. The doorway has a three-centred arched opening formed in red brick, with the original timber door retaining four raised and fielded panels and a spoked timber fanlight; it opens onto a concrete step to the street. The northernmost bay contains an elliptical-headed carriage arch with a timber lintel, red brick infill, a pair of replacement vertically-sheeted doors, and original cast-iron conical wheel-guards, which remain intact. Adjacent to the carriage arch, a red brick chimneystack projects above ground floor level.

The south side elevation is abutted by the adjoining building at number 15. The rear west elevation is four windows wide with windows placed irregularly, and is abutted at its south end by a modern single-storey extension. Some original six-over-six timber sash windows survive on this elevation, along with a square-headed door opening fitted with a replacement glazed timber door. The north side elevation is abutted by number 11, with red brick walling visible within the carriage arch.

Internally, the house appears to have lost some of its original fabric but retains its original layout and rear elevation.

To the rear of the site stands a detached, three-bay, two-storey former coach-house, reconstructed in rubblestone, which has since been converted into a separate dwelling.

The history of this building is well documented. A structure on this site first appears on a map of Hillsborough dating from around 1800, where it is shown as a single oblong building associated with a Miss McPherson. By the 1830s, the Townland Valuation records show it had been divided into two separate dwellings, each valued at £3 10s, one occupied by Michael Tracy and the other by Jane Turner. By the time of Griffith's Valuation in 1861, the property had been consolidated into one large house measuring 14 by 9 yards over two storeys, greatly increasing its assessed value to £19. The recorder believes the present building dates from around 1830, though it may have been extensively remodelled or entirely rebuilt between the 1830s and 1861. At that point it was owned by Abigail Davidson, who let it to the local surgeon Dr William Boyd.

Annual Revisions maps from the 1860s record that the house was used as the local post office, and show a large L-shaped rear return with an outbuilding in the yard; by 1896 the post office had relocated to number 19 Main Street. The rear return was subsequently demolished.

Dr William Boyd occupied the house until 1885, when his son Henry J. Boyd, also a surgeon, took it over. Henry J. Boyd lived there until 1903, when the family moved to Roden House on Park Street. In 1901 he was operating from a dispensary on Lisburn Street. The Boyd family were among Hillsborough's most respected, with at least four generations serving the town as doctors. A lych gate in the parish church graveyard was dedicated to Henry J. Boyd's memory, and a memorial garden on Main Street commemorates his grandson, Dr Arthur Stanley Boyd (1920–1971).

The 1901 census records Henry Johnston Boyd (aged 43) living at number 13 with his wife Annie (aged 36) and their family. The house was classed as a first-class dwelling with 13 inhabited rooms, and the outbuildings to the rear comprised a stable, coach house, and cow house.

The house was briefly occupied in 1904 by the Reverend Charles Harkness of St John's Church in Kilwarlin, before passing to the McCagherty family in 1907. The 1911 census records Robert McCagherty (aged 29), a Presbyterian baker, living there with his wife Margaret (aged 30) and their two sons, while Henry J. Boyd was still noted as the landholder. By 1911 the cow house had been replaced by a piggery and a barn. Robert McCagherty was the last recorded occupant in the Annual Revisions, which close in 1930.

In 1974, the architectural historian C. E. B. Brett described the house as "a pleasant modest two-storey stucco house with coach-arch, fanlight and most of its Georgian glazing." The house was listed in 1976. Renovations were carried out in 1987, and in 1991 planning permission was granted for a kitchen extension, which was subsequently built. The chimneys were repaired in 1997. In 2000 the barn recorded on the 1911 census was converted into a separate dwelling, and in 2002 a rear extension was added to that new house. At the time the listing record was compiled, the house was being sold by its then owners.