24 Railway Street, Lisburn, County Antrim, BT28 1XG

24 Railway Street, Lisburn

A mid-terrace, four-bay, two-storey rendered house built around 1880, with an integrated carriage arch and a two-storey rendered former coach house to the rear. The house forms part of a terrace of similarly proportioned dwellings lining the east side of Railway Street and remains one of the last houses on the street to retain full residential use.

The building is rectangular on plan. The pitched natural slate roof carries black clay ridge tiles and a pair of brick chimneystacks with octagonal clay pots; the southern stack is built into the gable of the adjoining house No. 22. Cast-iron guttering on iron brackets runs to the rendered eaves course, with cast-iron downpipe.

The exterior walling is ruled and lined cement render with rusticated render quoins, a moulded render plinth course, and a moulded continuous sill course to the first floor. The front elevation is four windows wide. Square-headed window openings are finished with painted masonry sills, architrave surrounds with keystones, and original horizontally-glazed 2/2 timber sash windows throughout. The central square-headed door opening features a decorative stucco surround. The original flat-panelled timber door has brass furniture and bolection mouldings, with a rectangular overlight flanked by a pair of fluted and panelled pilasters on plinth blocks supporting a plain frieze and dentiled entablature. The door opens onto a limestone step to the street. An elliptical-headed carriage arch opening occupies the left bay, finished with smooth render and a pair of early twentieth-century vertically-sheeted timber doors with an integrated pedestrian door and central bolt stone.

The north side elevation is abutted by the adjoining house. The rear elevation is painted rendered and abutted by a single-storey lean-to projection. Square-headed window openings match those of the front elevation. A central round-headed stairhall window opening contains a single-pane timber sash window with coloured glass margin lights. A replacement hardwood glazed door serves the rear projection. A further lean-to with natural slate roof extends beyond the carriage arch, incorporating a cantilevered first-floor projection. The south side elevation is abutted by adjoining house No. 22.

To the rear, a small yard with original cobbles and drain is enclosed to the east by a two-storey rendered brick former coach house with fibre cement slate roof, vertically-sheeted timber doors. A walled garden to the north of the rear yard is enclosed in rubble walling.

The house was first recorded on the Ordnance Survey map around 1900, though it was constructed prior to 1885, as a contemporary photograph of Railway Street clearly shows. In 1901, the census recorded it as a second-class dwelling of eight rooms with a slated roof and coach house accessed via a coach lane from the street. The building was initially used as a private dwelling with rooms let to lodgers. In 1901, Mary Fleming, a 79-year-old Presbyterian dressmaker, occupied two rooms, whilst Henry Lavery (aged 65) and his wife Margaret (aged 63) occupied six rooms. The 1901 Ulster Towns Directory records that Henry W. Tennant, a Justice of the Peace and Civic Engineer, operated an office from the premises, though he resided on the North Circular Road.

By 1911, the house was occupied by a single family: John Magee, a local cattle dealer aged 68, his wife Marian of 45 years, and two of their nine children. The 1911 census building return records ten rooms and one stable. In 1917, the house was occupied by Samuel Green, a retired grocer who applied for bankruptcy that year. The current owner's family has owned the house for approximately a century, having acquired it through Dr. George Waring, a descendant of the Warings of Waringstown. Neither Waring nor his descendants appear to have occupied the house before 1917, after which Samuel Green resided there.

The house retains its original fabric and detailing both internally and externally, and represents a well-proportioned late Victorian urban dwelling that has retained its residential use and its coach house and walled garden to the rear—a rare survivor in the heart of Lisburn. The building is situated within a conservation area.