15-17 Seymour Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Terrace of three-storey redbrick and rendered former houses, known as County Antrim Infirmary, built c.1800. Set on an east-west axis facing south on the north side of Seymour Street, converted into apartments in 1995.

Comprising a five-bay symmetrical rendered building with two-bay redbrick wings to either side with an incorporated carriage arch to each (that to west wing now filled in). A lower three-bay three-storey redbrick house is attached to the west end while a further three-bay three-storey redbrick block has been built on to the east end c.1995.

Pitched natural slate roofs, black clay ridge tiles, rolled lead to the central block, with redbrick chimneystacks covered over with semi-circular caps. Replacement metal and plastic rainwater goods. Painted rendered walling to the central block with rusticated render quoins and red sandstone water-table to ground level. Redbrick walling to wings and to west house, laid in Flemish bond. Cement rendered walling to rear elevations and returns. Square-headed window openings with replacement 6/6 timber sash windows throughout and painted sandstone sills. Multi-pane timber casement windows to rear with concrete sills.

Five-bay three-storey front elevation to central block has smooth rendered surrounds to all window openings with central square-headed door opening having replacement timber panelled door and two-pane timber framed rectangular overlight. Moulded reveal to opening with plain architrave surround and two console brackets supporting deep cornice above with lead lining. Door opens onto concrete paved footpath to front gravel parking area. The two bay wings to either side have an elliptical-headed carriage arch to each formed in brick, that to the west is now filled in with brick and a window opening with rusticated quoins to the east jamb. The east wing has rusticated quoins to either side of the carriage arch with a cast-iron wheel-guard from Portadown Foundry and pair of vertically-sheeted timber doors and bitmac drive.

The lower three-bay three-storey house to the west has 3/3 timber sash windows to the top floor and a continuous sill course to the first floor with an inscribed stone plaque below.. ‘NURSES HOME, PRESENTED TO THE, COUNTY ANTRIM INFIRMARY, BY THE PEOPLE OF LISBURN, AS A MEMORIAL OF THE JUBILEES, OF QUEEN VICTORIA, 1887-1897’. The off-centre square-headed door opening has a replacement timber panelled door with two-pane overlight, flanked by pair of panelled pilasters with oversized scrolled and foliate console brackets supporting cornice above with lead lining. Door opens onto paved front path set below gravel front a parking area.

Blank pebbledash rendered west gable.

Rear abutted by pair of gable-ended multi-bay three-storey returns with cement render and replacement multi-pane timber casement windows. The east gable is abutted by a lean-to redbrick projection supported on pair of iron posts.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Replacement metal / plastic
Walling Redbrick / Render
Windows Replacement timber sash

Historical information

This building was formerly the County Infirmary, established in 1767 in a house that had previously belonged to Mr Edward Gayer. The infirmary moved to the Seymour Street building, which was apparently purpose-built, in the early 1800s. It is shown, uncaptioned, on the first edition OS map of 1833, and from the third edition (c1900) onwards, is captioned ‘Infirmary’. (Lisburn Historical Society Journal, Christ Church Derriaghy, Mackey, p.65)

The ‘County of Antrim Infirmary’ is listed in the Townland Valuation (1828-40) as a house measuring 68.6x19.6x28, a return and several outbuildings, among them a laundry, cow house, piggery and cellar. It is valued at £38.4s.1d. OS Memoirs remarks, “The county of Antrim infirmary is a fine brick building, having 24 windows in front and is situated in an airy part of the town. This institution was established at Lisburn in the year 1767, pursuant to an act of parliament. Its object is to provide medicine for the poor of the county, both male and female, as well as medical or surgical aid. This is effected 2 ways, either by dispensing medicines or advice, or both, to extern patients, or by receiving them into the house when the case requires the immediate care and superintendence of the surgeon. The number of extern patients annually relieved amounts to an average of 850 with medicine and 400 with advice, and the interns to 290. The house contains 42 beds.” The memoirs continue with a description of the finances and running of the hospital. (OS Memoirs, p.12)

Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) also lists the Infirmary at a valuation of £64.10s with a deduction made for the gateway. The buildings are leased from the Marquess of Hertford and later Sir Richard Wallace.

The valuation town plan dating from 1877 to c1898 shows a detailed plan of the building including the internal layout. In 1899 the valuation is raised to £84.10s, probably indicating an extension to the building. According to Mackey, “the hospital was much improved in Dr St George’s era [early 1900s] with financial assistance from the Barbour family and other benefactors. It received an extensive internal modernisation in 1913...following a bazaar that raised £1,350. New facilities included the installation of electric power for lighting, a lift and the improvement of X-ray apparatus, and also an enlarged operating theatre”. (Mackey, p.65)

The building has now been converted into apartments c1995.

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
6. PRONI VAL/1/B/168 – Townland Valuation (1828-40)
7. PRONI VAL/2/B/1/61C – Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/9A-T – Annual Revisions (1863-1924)
9. PRONI VAL/12/E/40/1/ – Annual Revisions Town Plan (1877-c1898)
10. PRONI VAL/12/E/40/2/ – Annual Revisions Town Plan (1898-c1907)
11. PRONI VAL/12/E/40/4 – Annual Revisions Town Plan (1907-c1927)
12. Day, A. and P. McWilliams, eds. “Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Volume 8, Parishes of County Antrim II, 1832-8” Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1991

Secondary Sources

1. Christ Church Derriaghy, undated booklet
2. Lisburn Historical Society Journal, Volume 2, December 1979
3. Mackey, Brian “Lisburn, the Town and its People, 1873-1973” Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 2000

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

Terrace of three-storey red-brick townhouses formerly erected as the County Infirmary, dating from the early nineteenth-century. Displaying good style and proportions typical of a Georgian building, the overall composition remains intact and conains two original decorative doorcases. Although extensive restoration of the terrace including replacement of most of the timber sash windows and other external fixtrues and erosion of most internal fabric, has diminished its authenticity, the former infirmary contributes significantly to the character of Seymour Street, and has social interest for the local community.