Millcourt Antiques

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A multi-bay two-storey rendered end-terrace shop with canted corner entrance, built c.1865 and located to the east side of Lurgan Road in Seapatrick. L-shaped on plan.

Pitched natural slate roof with blue/black angled ridge tiles and rendered chimneystack having moulded caps and terracotta pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods (uPVC to rear) on projecting eaves. Walling is painted roughcast render on a smooth rendered plinth. Windows are 1/1 timber sliding sash with projecting sills (some timber fixed paned windows to first floor and uPVC to rear); plate glass windows to ground floor at north and west are replacements.

Street-fronted, the west elevation has three windows to first floor and a plate glass window to ground floor flanked by pilaster strips. Canted entrance bay at left has a window to first floor and, to ground floor, a panelled-and-glazed double-leaf timber door with brass latch, surmounted by a square-headed overlight and flanked by lesenes. Timber sign mounted on rendered fascia and wrapped around shopfront.

The north elevation has three windows to first floor right over a plate glass window to ground floor, flanked by lesenes. To left bay are four windows to first floor. Ground floor has a timber-sheeted door and an infilled window to right.

The east gable has a projecting chimney flue.

The rear elevation is abutted by adjoining building (HB17/04/020D) and has a uPVC window to first floor facing east. Blocked-up window to first floor facing south; remainder of first and ground floor not visible.

Setting

Situated at the junction of Lurgan Road and Seapatrick Road, forming a terrace of five. To north and west is a twentieth-century housing estate. Rubble stone wall to opposite side of street.

Roof: Mineral fibre slate
Walling: Render
Windows: Timber / uPVC
RWG: Cast-iron / uPVC

Historical information

The row of buildings were constructed as houses for supervisory staff and a shop by the local spinning firm of Hayes & Co Ltd.

The buildings are first shown on the third edition OS map of c.1900 as a terraced row situated opposite the Hayes mill complex which is captioned ‘Seapatrick Mills’. They are not listed in Griffith’s Valuation and first appear in the valuation fieldbook dating from 1864 to 1874. No date is given in the fieldbook but a tentative date of c.1865 can be proposed based on the primary records and the appearance of the buildings. Numbers 91 to 95 Lurgan Road are the first to be listed in the fieldbook, 97 and 99 being added at a slightly later date.

The invention of power-loom spinning and weaving in the early nineteenth century led to the establishment of great spinning mills such as Hayes at Seapatrick and Dunbar McMaster at Gilford. Added to the numerous weaving and bleaching concerns in the area that were already making use of the Bann’s water power, these firms put Banbridge at the centre of world linen production for many years. (Dillon)

The shop, store and yard is valued at £25 together with rooms over the gateway next door which are valued at £4.10s. The buildings are leased from Frederick William Hayes and Coy Limited but are added to the valuation fieldbook for 1864-74 at a slightly later date than numbers 91-95. The initial occupiers are Thomas Wallace and in the rooms over the shop, William Hayes of the Seapatrick Spinning Mill, suggesting that part of the shop was used by the company. The shop changed hands several times over the years, passing to Isaac Mathers in 1879, Samuel A Hamilton in 1883 and in 1890 to James Leckey, grocer, who later lived at number 91. By 1904 the shop and stores above had been taken over by the Seapatrick Co-operative Company.

A photograph of the shop dating from around this period has survived and appears in Young and Quail’s ‘Old Banbridge’. Wrapping around the shop above the doors and windows are the painted words, ‘Grocery & Provision Stores, Seapatrick, Grocery & Hardware Stores’. There are two six-pane display windows to the ground floor but otherwise the general appearance of the main shop has not greatly altered. In the 1900s the store on the upper floor was used for grain and flour. The adjoining building, however has been substantially changed at ground floor level. The c.1900 photograph shows that the building originally featured a set of double doors over which were painted the words ‘Coal Yard’ with a round-arched doorway to the left and a substantial window/door opening to the right (although this is, in itself an alteration), which appears to have partially survived. More terraced housing originally abutted the coal yard but these houses have since been demolished. The 1901 and 1911 censuses simply list the premises as an uninhabited grocer’s shop.

At the time of the First General Revaluation (1933/4) the rooms over the gateway are included with the shop itself. T & A Wallace lease the shop, store and covered yard from F W Hayes and Co Ltd and it is revalued at £20.10s. It is a corner shop ‘with front in two sides and coal store at back’. The rent is £52 yearly free. A plan and dimensions are given showing the shop, gateway and coal store.

According to Young and Quail, the shop traded until the late 1960s by which time it was a supermarket-style shop. Since 1995 the premises has been run as an antique shop.

References:
Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/27/1 First Edition OS Map 1833
2. PRONI OS/6/3/27/2 Second Edition OS map 1860
3. PRONI OS/6/3/27/3 Third Edition OS Map (c1900)
4. PRONI OS/6/3/27/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1903-18
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/6A-H Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
6. PRONI VAL/3/C/4/2 – First General Revaluation (1936-57)
7. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/3/L/4 – First General Revaluation (1933-57)

Secondary Sources
1. Dillon, A “Images of Ireland, Banbridge”Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1997
2. Young, A F and Quail, D “Old Banbridge” Stenlake Publishing, 2002

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A two-bay two-storey rendered end-terrace shop with corner entrance, built c.1865. Formerly subdivided and in use as a coal store and grocery shop, and part of a terrace to northeast. Some alterations, including two replacement shop windows to ground floor. The building has retained its commercial use and some of its original character has been preserved. Interior detailing is plain, but there are some details of note. This mid-Victorian terrace (HB17/04/020A-E) is of a common type and not among the best examples. It has been compromised by cumulative changes and is not of special interest.