Hill House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

End of terrace three-storey with attic redbrick townhouse, built c.1780. East gabled front elevation fronting onto Main Street with entrance bay to lean-to rear projection and three-storey south elevation fronting onto the north side of The Square with front railed area.

Pitched natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles and large rendered chimneystack with octagonal clay pots rising from the east gable. Cast-iron guttering on shaped iron brackets to ogee-moulded sandstone eaves cornice and cast-iron downpipes. Redbrick walling laid in Flemish bond with painted ruled and lined rendered walling to the lower floor. Redbrick camber-headed window openings with original 6/6 timber sash windows having cylinder glass and painted stone sills.

Front gabled east elevation is two windows wide and fenestrated to the attic level. The lower rendered floor extends to the north as a screen wall containing the principal entrance doorcase. 3/3 timber sash windows to attic level, 6/6 to first and second floors and 6/3 to the lower floor. Segmental-headed door opening with moulded surround, keystone and impost blocks; flat-panelled timber door flanked by sidelights with lintel cornice and spoked timber fanlight. Door opens onto paved platform and five granite steps enclosed to either side by spear-headed wrought-iron railings on rendered wall.

South side elevation is three windows wide and terminates the east end of the terrace of similar houses lining the north side of the square with a storey less than the remainder of the terrace and enclosed by wrought-iron railing on low rendered wall. To the corner of the railing is a decorative wrought-iron lamp standard.

West side elevation abutted by adjoining house No.13 (HB19/05/041).

North rear elevation has an irregular arrangement of window openings and abutted by lean-to entrance bay and rear projection. Largely 6/6 timber sash windows with a round-headed opening above the lean-to with timber Y-tracery.

Setting:
Terminating the eastern end of the terrace of similar Georgian houses lining the north side of The Square. The rear garden is screened from Main Street by tall rubblestone wall and pair of stone piers supporting sheeted timber gates. Abutting the north rear elevation is a two-storey rendered former outhouse housing the kitchen (G04) to the upper level.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Cast-iron
Walling Redbrick
Windows Original 6/6 timber sash

Historical information

Hill House first appears on a c.1800 plan of Hillsborough on the north-west corner of the square and at the top of Main Street, although it was constructed c. 1780 along with the three adjoining houses on the north side of the Square. On the c. 1800 map it is depicted as a square building with a rear return, the yard of which stretched down Main Street. A large out office is visible at the end of the yard facing onto Main Street. The map notes that the property is occupied by a Mr Robinson. A map of c.1803 shows little change. The first Ordnance Survey map of 1833 shows the property in more detail, depicting the house and its out offices connected together. By this time the Townland Valuation (c. 1830s) records the occupant as a Mr Henry Murray and the value of the property at £16.

By 1861 Griffith’s Valuation records that the house was unoccupied and the value had been lowered to value to £15. In 1868 the house was occupied by a Mr Robert Wallace who vacated the house in 1870. In 1874 a Mr. William James Beckwick came into possession of the house and lived there until his death in 1878 (Graveyard Inscriptions, p.55) and was replaced in 1881 by Robert [McGorney]. A valuation book is missing; however, by 1909 the value of the house had been increased to £20. but was then reduced to its original value when a Mr Richard Crawley, a local painter and carpenter, occupied Hill House in that year, living there until Annual Revisions for the area ended in 1930 (Ulster Towns Directory 1910). By 1914 the out office at the end of the yard, which probably was used as a coach house (the coach arch filled in) had been converted into a dwelling and was valued separately from Hill House (No. 33 Main Street – HB19/05/028).

The 1911 census records that Richard Crawley, a 59 year old Joiner, occupied Hill House with his wife of 35 years, Elizabeth Crawley and four of their children. Recorded as a first class dwelling comprised of 11 inhabited rooms, Hill House possessed a small number of out offices in its rear yard which included the coach house as well as a fowl house, a workshop and a wash house.

No. 35 Main Street was originally constructed c. 1780. Brett tells us that the row of four houses situated at the north side of the Square in Hillsborough were built in the late 18th century whilst the Archaeological Survey of County Down includes a letter from Lord Downshire’s agent, John Gardner, dated February 1779, in which he writes ‘we are now clearing the ground for the four houses to be built in the square’ (Brett, p. 88; ASCD, p. 415). Brett describes 35 Main Street as a house of ‘only two floors high over a semi-basement ... it is brick built with moulded stone eaves-cornice and the roof is slated.’ Brett suggests that Hill House dates from the same time as the buildings beside it on the square. Brett states that Hill House has been the residence of a number of distinguished figures, the most recent of whom was the late Sir Ivan Ewart, a local ‘Linen Baron’ who served in the Second World War in the Royal Navy. Losing an eye during his time in the navy, Ewart spent part of the war in Colditz Castle as a prisoner-of-war and was part of an unsuccessful escape attempt. After the war Ewart spent the rest of his life in support of charities which helped the blind and partially sighted. He died in 1995 (The Independent, 8 Dec 1995).

Brett noted that in 1974 Hill House, along with the neighbouring buildings in the Square, looked rather neglected (Brett: UAHS, p. 89). However, after it was listed in 1976 restoration work was carried out on the house. The house was repainted and repaired in 1981and underwent additional repairs in 1994 (NIEA File).

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI D671/M/8/25 – Hillsborough Map c.1800
2. PRONI D671/M/8/57/1 – Hillsborough Illustrated Map 1803
3. PRONI VAL/1/B/344 A-B – Townland Valuations 1834
4. PRONI VAL/1/D/3/5 – Town Plan 1834
5. PRONI OS/6/3/14/1 – First Edition OS Map 1834
6. PRONI OS/6/3/14/2 – Second Edition OS Map 1858
7. PRONI OS/6/3/14/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1902-1903
8. PRONI OS/6/3/14/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1919-1920
9. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/45A-C – Griffith’s Valuation 1856-64
10. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14A – Annual Revisions 1864-1879
11. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14B – Annual Revisions 1880-1889
12. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14C – Annual Revisions 1890-1908
13. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14D – Annual Revisions 1909-1928
14. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14E – Annual Revisions 1928-1930
15. Ulster Towns Directory (1910)
16. The Independent (8 December 1995)

Secondary Sources

1. ‘An Archaeological Survey of County Down’ Belfast: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1966)
2. Brett, C. E. B., ‘Historic buildings, groups of buildings, areas of architectural importance in the towns and villages of Mid Down: Hillsborough, Dromore, Dromara, Ballynahinch, the Spa, Drumaness and Saintfield’ Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1974.
3. Brett, C. E. B., ‘Buildings of North County Down’ Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 2002.
4. NIEA File – HB19/05/029.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

End of terrace three-storey with attic redbrick townhouse, built c.1780, with east gabled front elevation fronting onto Main Street and three-storey south elevation fronting onto the north side of The Square. Viewed as part of the terrace of similar houses on the north side of the square (HB19/05/039A-C), this house is a storey lower than the remainder and employs an unusual way of turning the corner onto Main Street with a tall gabled elevation. Retaining most original fabric the house is on a prominent site forming a crucial part of both The Square and Main Street, stitching the two historic areas together and contributing greatly to the architectural interest of Hillsborough.

General comments

Criteria R & S also apply.