45-47 High Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Large two storey terrace house of perhaps c.1820s, with Doric entrance surround and modern shop front. The building is set on the W side of High Street, in the centre of Ballynahinch.

The asymmetrical front façade faces E. To the left of centre is a sturdy looking timber door, (which may be original), with shallow panels. The doorway has a semicircular fanlight with ‘petal’ tracery and is encased with Doric ¾ columns with entablature, cornice and blocking course. To the left of the doorway is a house window with simple moulded surround and modern frame. To the right of the house door is a large modern shop front. To the first floor are four evenly spaced windows, as ground floor left but smaller and with segmental heads.

The S gable is blank. To the rear there is a large ground floor return which has been extended at some point. The return has various modern windows and a modern door. To the right of the return (on ground floor of façade of main house) there is a window with modern frame. There are three similar windows to the first floor with two stairwell windows, (set at intermediate levels), with similar frames.

The front façade is finished in painted lined render to front and unpainted cement rough cast to the rear and gable. The gabled roof is covered in artificial ‘slate’ (asbestos and asbestos free), with three Velux windows to front and three to the rear. Single rendered chimney stack to S.

Historical information

Buildings are shown on this general site on maps dating from the mid 1700s (at least) onwards. The present house is probably the relatively newly built (possibly c.1820) dwelling of same dimensions recorded in the valuation of c.1836-38. At that point the property was the home of the Rev. William Crozier, and as such acted as the manse for Ballynahinch Unitarian (i.e. Non-subscribing Presbyterian) Church. Sometime after Crozier’s death in c.1867 a shop was inserted into the building. Valuation plan and photographic evidence indicate that this was carried out prior to 1905.

The present owner suggests that in the 1930s, at least, the shop (a grocer’s) was run by a Mr Thompson and that the house was occupied by a family named Fulton and then a Mrs Hart, who remained there until some time in the 1940s. He further stated that house may also have contained a doctor’s surgery at some point. In the late 1940s the property served as Ballynahinch Technical College, and was acquired by the present owner in 1955.

The building was damaged by two near by explosions in the 1970s. After the first of these (in 1973) the front window frames were replaced with modern versions.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D.1255 Title deeds, legal and testamentary papers, correspondence and Irish Land Commissioners Papers re the Ballynahinch Estate, 1630-1940
2 ‘Taylor’s and Skinner’s maps of the roads of Ireland’ (Dublin 1777) map 284
3 PRONI D.272/41 MS map of Ballynahinch by William Byers, c.1790
4 PRONI OS/1/3/22 OS map 1st ed., 1834, Co. Down 22
5 ‘Ordinance Survey Memoirs of Ireland’ vol.17 ed Angélique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1992) p.106
6 PRONI VAL/1D/3/19 Valuation town plan, Ballynahinch, 1838
7 PRONI OS/9/41/1 OS Town plan of Ballynahinch, 1860
8 William McComb ‘Guide to Belfast and adjoining districts’ (Belfast 1861)
9 PRONI VAL/12E/83/1 Valuation town plans, Ballynahinch, 1864-1905
10 PRONI VAL/12E/83/2 Valuation town plans, Ballynahinch, 1905-35
11 PRONI OS/8/3/2 OS town plan of Ballynahinch, 1920
12 PRONI VAL/3G/59/1 Valuation town plans, Ballynahinch, 1937-53

Secondary sources
1 C.E.B. Brett, ‘Historic buildings…Mid Down’ (Belfast UAHS 1974), p.41 [Photograph (from the Lawrence Collection at PRONI) of High St., Ballynahinch c.1900.]

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Large two storey terrace house of perhaps c.1820s, with Doric entrance surround and modern shop front. The window frames are now all modern examples, and to the rear, a (probably original) single storey return has been extended in relatively recent times.