3 The Square, Ballynahinch, County Down, BT24 8AE

3 The Square, Ballynahinch — Record Only

Note on current status: This building is recorded but not listed. When it was first evaluated in March 2010, it was considered a strong candidate for listing on the basis of its largely intact exterior and interior. However, around 28 July 2010 the interior was almost entirely stripped out, substantially reducing its architectural significance to a point where formal listing was no longer considered appropriate.

The building is a relatively narrow, three-storey terraced house with a ground-floor shop, dating in its main structure to around 1800, though probably before 1834. The shopfront is later, dating from the mid to later 19th century. It sits on the south side of The Square in the centre of Ballynahinch, within a mixed terrace.

The main body of the building has a slated double-pitch roof and a rendered façade, painted to the front and left unpainted at the rear. To the eastern side of the rear elevation there is a two-storey gabled return, with a further two single-storey returns having lean-to roofs, all arranged in a linear run. A narrow communal alleyway passes through the ground floor of the neighbouring property to the west (No. 2 The Square), giving access to a small enclosed yard.

The front façade, which faces roughly north, is asymmetrical. At ground floor level there is a simple traditional timber shopfront. The shop door and window are flanked by plain timber pilasters with corbelled caps and a plain frieze, though all the bases have been removed. The shop doorway is flat-headed, with a plain overlight above a timber panelled double door. A plain rendered stall riser supports a replacement single-light shop window. Above the shopfront is a plain timber fascia carrying a traditional painted sign, surmounted by a projecting timber cornice protected with lead capping.

The window openings to the upper floors are all flat-headed, with two openings to each floor. There is a slight Georgian reduction in the size of the second-floor openings. Sills appear to be painted cut stone, and the frames are 2/2 painted timber sash with exposed sash boxes to the front elevation.

The rear façade of the three-storey section is largely obscured by the two-storey return. There are two flat-headed window openings to the return: one to the first floor of the south face and one to the ground floor of the west face, each fitted with a 1/1 painted timber sash and a wire security grille, with sills of painted cut stone. To the west face of the first return there is a doorway with a timber sheeted door and two flat-headed window openings, each quite wide and fitted with a modern painted timber two-light frame. To the east side is a second return, slightly wider, accessed externally and with no windows. The roof of the first return is covered in corrugated iron, while the second return roof is slated. Rainwater goods are uPVC, fixed to timber fascia boards.

The building is described as a good example of what might be called "Georgian vernacular" — a type of modest urban terrace dwelling once widespread in Northern Ireland but increasingly rare. The mid to later 19th century timber shopfront is itself now uncommon and contributes both to the character of the building and to the surrounding streetscape.

The site has a well-documented history. It appears as a developed plot on Taylor's and Skinner's map of 1777 and on William Byers's manuscript map of the Ballynahinch area made around 1790. After the Battle of Ballynahinch in 1798, in which sixty-three houses were reported gutted including all the best houses, the town was substantially rebuilt. The agent for the Rawdon estate noted in 1803 that within the preceding few years around twenty elegant new houses had been built in the various streets, many of them three storeys high. This property may have been among them.

The first valuation survey, compiled in 1836, records a building on this site of similar dimensions to the present structure — measuring 12½ by 23½ by 23 feet, with a return of 12 by 11½ by 14 feet and an office of 14 by 11½ by 6½ feet — and grades it as "not new." In valuers' usage of the period, "not new" generally indicated a building of 25 to 30 years old or more, supporting an approximate construction date of around 1800, consistent with the building's Georgian vernacular appearance. The occupant recorded in 1836 was Thomas George, paying £8 per annum in rent for the house and garden, with no lease.

By 1862 the property was in the hands of Sarah Bailie, with the lease from the Ker estate held by John Bailie. Directories list Sarah Bailie as a grocer of Market Square from 1852 to 1866, suggesting the building may have functioned as a shop well before 1852. A Samuel George of Market Square is recorded as a tallow chandler (candlemaker) in Slater's directory of 1846; if he occupied the property after Thomas George, the building may have had a retail use from an even earlier date. The next recorded occupant was Mary J. Davis, listed in 1899. Much of the building's interior detailing was late Victorian in character, and it is possible that a refurbishment took place around this period. The property was recorded as vacant in 1919 and remained so until 1924, when Matthew Martin took up the tenancy. He was succeeded around 1932 by the Mack brothers, and the property remained in Mack family hands as recently as February 2010, by which point it was vacant and for sale. A shop use is specifically noted by valuers for the first time in 1935, though the surviving shopfront clearly predates this by several decades.

Around 28 July 2010 the interior was almost entirely removed, as recorded by a Northern Ireland Environment Agency site inspection.