54-56 Antrim Street, Lisburn, County Antrim

A symmetrical detached two-storey redbrick building erected around 1934 on the corner of Antrim Street and Bachelor's Walk in Lisburn. Designed by Charles S. Agnew of the Northern Ireland Ministry of Finance Works Division, it was built as an employment exchange to replace two earlier properties—a photography and stationers shop (No. 52) and a delph and grocers shop (Nos. 54-56)—that had occupied the site since at least 1903. The building was later used by the Eastern Health and Social Services Board as a District Administrative Office and Day Centre, though it has remained vacant in recent years.

The building is rectangular on plan, facing west onto Antrim Street, with a flat-roofed single-storey wing extending to Bachelor's Walk to the north. The hipped roof is covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles and a single redbrick chimneystack rising from the rear elevation. Guttering is plastic, fitted to boxed timber overhanging eaves, with cast-iron downpipes. The walls are laid in stretcher bond redbrick with a projecting stone plinth course and a soldier course of redbrick above a continuous stone sill course.

The symmetrical front elevation is five windows wide with a central shallow breakfront. Windows throughout are timber sash with exposed sash boxes set within camber-headed rubbered brick openings with stone sills—6/9 panes to ground floor, 3/6 to first floor. The entrance comprises a square-headed door opening with replacement timber door and large overlight, flanked by a pair of slender fixed-pane sidelights, topped with a flush concrete lintel.

The north elevation fronting Bachelor's Walk is two windows wide. The rear elevation is abutted by the flat-roofed single-storey wing, which is six windows wide with 6/9 timber sash windows and a single square-headed door opening with double-leaf timber panelled door and rectangular overlight. The rear elevation also features a series of diminutive square-headed casement window openings. The south elevation fronting McKeown Street is three windows wide.

The building employs a classical language in composition and materials, well proportioned and detailed. It stands on a prominent corner site opposite Bow Street Mall and lies within a conservation area.