2 The Square

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Mid-terrace single-bay two-storey with attic-storey rendered former house, built c.1780. Rectangular on plan facing west with several extensions to rear c.1990 to 2005. Built as one of a pair with No. 1 The Square (HB19/05/031A).

Pitched natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles and a rebuilt large redbrick chimneystack (shared with No.1 ). Cast-iron gutter on iron brackets to a convex eaves course with cast-iron downpipe. Ruled-and-lined cement rendered walling. Square-headed window openings with painted masonry sills and 6/6 timber sash windows.

Front elevation three windows wide with replacement 6/6 timber sash windows to the first floor and original 6/6 timber sash windows to the ground floor with exposed sash boxes, no horns and some cylinder glass. Off-centre square-headed door opening with replacement double-leaf timber glazed doors.

North side elevation abutted by adjoining building.

East rear elevation is abutted by series of extensions dating from the late twentieth-century.

South side elevation abutted by No.3 (HB19/05/032) with incorporated square-headed carriage arch giving rear access to Nos 2, 3 & 4.

Setting:
Part of a terraced of similar houses on the east side of Main Street as it joins The Square, overlooking the former Market House and Hillsborough Castle.

Roof Natural slate
Rainwater Cast-iron
Walling Cement render
Windows Timber sash

Historical information

The house appears on visual inspection to be of late eighteenth century date and a house on the site is shown, somewhat schematically, on an estate map of 1788. An earlier estate map of 1777 shows no buildings on this side of the square. The house with its current footprint is shown on an estate map of c.1800 and this is noted to be the residence of ‘Megarry’.

The house is listed in the Townland Valuation (1828-40) as the residence of Charles Adams and is valued at £9.16s. In Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) the house is initially listed as the property of the Marquess of Downshire in fee and then as the residence of Robert Manning leased from the Marquess of Downshire. It is initially valued at £10.5s which is later raised to £9.10s. Dimensions are given for a house and basement. The fact that the house is briefly in the possession of the Marquess of Downshire may indicate that remodelling or rebuilding work was going on in the mid-nineteenth century.

In 1878 the house became the Hillsborough Reading Room and Joseph Beatty was the caretaker. The Marquess of Downshire received a rent of £4 for the reading room but there is no further reference to it after 1881, when Joseph K Beatty is simply listed as the occupier of the house. The house remains in the Beatty family for some years, passing to Jane Beatty in 1929. However, John Barry notes that the Reading Room ‘on the Main Street near the top of the hill’, which may be the present building, was in operation from 1876 until just before the first World War and supplied the inhabitants with access to daily press and periodicals. (Barry, p.38)

Renovations to the house took place throughout the 1980s and in 1995 an extension was built to the rear. The building was subject to an extensive fire in June 2007 when most of the historic fabric was lost. (NIEA file)

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/14/1 – First Edition OS Map 1833
2. PRONI OS/6/3/14/2 – Second Edition OS map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/3/14/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1902-3
4. PRONI OS/6/3/14/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1919-20
5. PRONI VAL/1/A/3/14 – Townland Valuation Field Map (c.1830)
6. PRONI VAL/1/B/344A-B – Townland Valuation (1828-40)
7. PRONI VAL/1/D/3/5 – Townland Valuation Town Plan (c.1834)
8. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/45A-C – Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/14/A-E – Annual Revisions (1864-1930)
10. PRONI VAL/12/E/102/1/1-6 – Annual Revisions Town Plan ([c.1864]-1909)
11. D671/M/8/2 – Map of Hillsborough, 1771
12. T3153/1 – Map of Hillsborough, 1788
13. D671/M/8/25 – Map of Hillsborough c.1800
14. D671/M/8/57 – Map of Hillsborough 1803
15. NIEA file – HB19/05/031B

Secondary Sources

1. Barry, John “Hillsborough, A Parish in the Ulster Plantation” Belfast: William Mullan & Son Ltd, 1982

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Mid-terrace single-bay two-storey rendered former house, built c.1780, on the east side of The Square. This building has been much altered during the latter part of the twentieth century and particularly as a result of a fire in 2007. Whilst the front elevation retains its eighteenth century character and contributes significantly to the Hillsborough Conservation Area, the rest of the building is largely modern.

General comments

Please note this record has been renumbered, it was previously recorded as HB19/05/031