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

25 Main Street is a detached two-storey house dating from the early nineteenth century, now serving as a butcher's shop. The building stands on the west side of Main Street in Hillsborough, set among terraces on a steep incline.

The house is rendered in dry-dash pebbledash with rusticated rendered quoins and a smooth rendered plinth course. It has a pitched natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles and rendered chimneystacks rising from both gable ends, though the right-hand chimney is a replacement. Cast-iron guttering on iron brackets and cast-iron downpipes serve the roof. The front east elevation is three windows wide, each with square-headed openings containing replacement single-pane timber sash windows with painted masonry sills. An off-centre rendered shopfront was inserted in 1974 with a fascia above it. The south gable has a single small window opening to both floors, facing onto a gravel rear access lane. A flat-roofed entrance bay with a door opening to the south connects the front and rear structures. The north gable is blank, fronting onto an access passageway to the adjoining building.

A two-storey extension was added to the rear in 1983.

Historical records show a building on this site appearing on a map of Hillsborough circa 1800 as an oblong structure with an L-shaped rear return. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833 and the Townland Valuation of the 1830s show no alteration from 1800, with the house valued at £8 and occupied by Hugh Sterling. By 1861, Griffiths Valuation recorded the house under James Sterling (probably Hugh's son), who let it to tenants. The building was described as a second-class dwelling measuring ten yards by six-and-a-half yards, two storeys high, with a wooden roof and valued at £8 10s. The house fell vacant by 1864 and was not occupied again until 1874, when William Walker took residence. From 1864, the Marquis of Downshire held the lease as lessor.

William Walker was recorded as a butcher in the Ulster Town's Directory of 1880, though the 1901 census describes him as a "victualler" or licensed grocer. In 1901, the 60-year-old Anglican lived at No. 25 with his Roman Catholic wife Mary and five children. His four sons worked with him in the shop while his daughter was employed as a dressmaker. The building return of 1901 recorded it as a second-class dwelling with extensive rear outbuildings including a stable, coach house, cow house, calf house, barn, shed and store.

William Walker died in April 1902, leaving effects of £381 17s. to his son William Walker Junior. The younger William, recorded as a butcher in the 1910 Ulster Town's Directory at age 45, lived at No. 25 with his wife Bessie (27) and two sons. His brother James Walker also resided there and worked with William as a butcher. The 1911 Census recorded the brothers as having converted the house into a butcher's shop, with William Walker listed as the landholder. He occupied the house until 1930.

By the mid 1970s, the building retained the appearance of a fairly basic nineteenth-century house. In 1974, architectural historian C. E. B. Brett described it as a "two-storey quoined house of stucco" that formerly had a simple granite keystoned doorcase, which had recently been removed. Brett praised it as "simple and modest, but seemly and charming" but criticised the inclusion in 1974 of a new modern shopfront as an unsuitable addition to an previously elegant building. The shopfront and dwelling were listed in 1976, though this listing has since been removed as of 4 May 2012.

The building continues to operate as a butcher's shop and remains in the possession of the Walker family. It stands within a conservation area.