Reid's Shoes

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A three-storey two-bay mid-terrace Georgian townhouse (now commercial premises) probably originating from the 18th century. Square plan-form with rear returns. Located south of the Irish Linen Centre and Lisburn Museum in the city centre; east of the junction between Market Place and Market Square.

Pitched natural slate roof with clay ridge tiles; corbelled eaves course; replacement extruded metal ogee moulded gutters; cast-iron circular down pipes. Ruled-and-lined rendered walling. 6/6 and 3/6 timber sliding sash windows with horns; rectangular masonry cills. The front door forms part of a modern glazed shop front.

The principal elevation faces north and is symmetrically arranged. The ground floor has been completely modified with a shop front comprising a large single glazed pane over a plinth; glazed door to the left; roller shutter hood over. The first floor has two uniformly arranged windows with diminutive second floor windows directly over.

The left gable is abutted by 25 Market Square.

The rear elevation has a single second floor window to the right. It is primarily abutted by a two-storey gable ended return, further abutted by a long single-storey extension which extends a tangent two-storey building located at the rear of the site.

The right gable is abutted by 29 Market Square.

Setting:

The building forms part of a terrace comprising buildings from various periods. Immediately to the right is a three storey Victorian building; to the left is a similarly proportioned Georgian building beyond which is a large modern replacement block. Straight ahead is the former market square; now occupied by the Irish Linen Centre and Lisburn Museum.

Roofing: Natural slate
Walling: Ruled-and-lined render
Windows: Timber sliding sash
RWG: Extruded metal/cast-iron

Historical information

The town of Lisnagarvey, as it was known until the 1660s, was first established in the early seventeenth century when James I granted Sir Fulke Conway the south Antrim manor of Killultagh. Sir Fulke established the headquarters of his Killultagh estates at Lisburn and began to lay out its foundations in the early 1620s (Mackey, p.1) By 1640 the town had been laid out very much along its present lines, with a central market place and streets radiating from it. (Mackey, p.x) After a disastrous fire in 1707, the town was quickly rebuilt to its former street plan using improved materials, brick replacing wood and slates and tiles replacing shingles. Rebuilding was encouraged in the aftermath of the fire by Lord Conway who granted forty-one year leases on the waste holdings. (Ulster Star 20/04/2007; Mackey, p.4)

The current building is similar in scale, proportions and detailing to those at the end of the row dated 1709 and appears likely to date from the period of rebuilding following the fire. A building on the site is shown on Pattison’s 1833 map of the area.

Nothing is known of its early history and the building could not be identified in Griffith’s Valuation or census records.

The building is currently in use as a shoe shop.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/68/1 – First Edition OS Map 1833
2. PRONI OS/6/1/68/2 – Second Edition OS map 1857
3. PRONI OS/6/1/68/3 – Third Edition OS Map c1900
4. PRONI OS/6/1/68/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1921
5. PRONI OS/6/1/68/5 – Fifth Edition OS Map 1939

Secondary Sources

1. Mackey, Brian “Lisburn, the Town and its People, 1873-1973” Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 2000
2. Ulster Star 20/04/2007

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A three-storey two-bay mid-terrace Georgian townhouse (now commercial premises) probably originating from the 18th century. Externally the character of the building has been significantly altered with the modernisation of the ground floor. Although the upper floors have retained their Georgian scale and proportions externally, the interior has been modernised. These various alterations detract from its architectural and historical interest.

General comments

This record was completed without access to the primary source material held by PRONI