54-56 Antrim Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Symmetrical detached two-storey redbrick building, built c.1934. Rectangular on plan facing west onto Antrim Street with flat-roofed single-storey wing fronting onto Bachelor’s Walk.

Hipped natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles and a single redbrick chimneystack rising from the rear elevation. Plastic guttering to boxed timber overhanging eaves and cast-iron downpipes. Redbrick walling laid in stretcher bond and projecting stone plinth course with soldier course of redbrick to continuous stone sill course. Camber-headed rubbered brick window openings with stone sills and timber sash windows with exposed sash boxes.

Symmetrical front elevation is five windows wide with central shallow breakfront. 6/9 timber sash windows to the ground floor, 3/6 to the first floor and a tripartite front entrance comprising square-headed door opening with replacement timber door and large overlight flanked by pair of slender fixed-pane sidelights and flush concrete lintel over.

North side elevation fronts onto Bachelor’s Walk and is two windows wide.

Rear elevation is abutted by a flat-roofed single-storey wing, six windows wide with 6/9 timber sash windows and a single square-headed door opening having double-leaf timber panelled door and rectangular overlight. Rear elevation has a series of diminutive square-headed window openings with casement windows.

South side elevation fronts onto McKeown Street and is three windows wide.

Setting:
Fronting onto Antrim Street on a site between Bachelor’s Walk to the north and McKeown Street to the south opposite Bow Street Mall.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Plastic / Cast-iron
Walling Redbrick
Windows Timber sash

Historical information

This two-storey redbrick Government building, formerly used as an employment exchange and health centre, was constructed c.1934. It replaced a local grocery store which had stood on the site since from at least 1903 when the third edition of the Ordnance Survey map for Lisburn recorded two properties on the site (at that time divided into No. 52 and nos. 54-56 Antrim Street) situated at the corner of Bachelor’s Walk and Antrim Street. The 1910 Ulster Town’s Directory records that No. 52 Antrim Street was occupied by John Lannigan who operated a photography and stationers shop from the premises; nos. 54-56 were occupied by a Delph and Grocers shop owned by a Mr. Henry Dixon. The 1901 Census described the property as a 1st class shop which consisted of 14 rooms and possessed a small number of out offices.

This shop, along with No. 52 Antrim Street, stood until c. 1934 when they were replaced with the current two-storey Government building. The First Survey record tells us that this building was originally constructed by architects attached to the Northern Ireland Ministry of Finance, as an employment exchange (an early form of employment agency); the NIEA currently possesses a photograph of the building shortly after it was constructed dated 1934 and signed by the architect, a Mr. Charles S. Agnew (First Survey Record, 1994).

Agnew (1876-1961) was employed with the Irish Office of Public Works from 1904 until 1921 when he entered the Northern Ireland Ministry of Finance Works Division with the creation of the new state; Agnew became the senior architect with the division and was responsible for the construction and design of many of Northern Ireland’s Government buildings.

This former employment exchange was later used by the Eastern Health and Social Services Board as a District Administrative Office and Day Centre although it has been closed in recent years and continues to lie vacant.

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 1903
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. 1901 / 1911 Census
7. Ulster Towns Directory (1910)

Secondary Sources

1. NIEA First Survey Record – HB 19/15/008 (1994)

Online Resources
1. Dictionary of Irish Architects - http://www.dia.ie

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Symmetrical detached two-storey redbrick former Employement Exchange and Health centre building, built c. 1934 to the designs of the Ministry of Finance Works Division. Rectangular on plan facing west onto Antrim Street with flat-roofed single-storey wing fronting onto Bachelor’s Walk. Now empty, this early twentieth-century public building employs a classical language in both composition and materials. This prominent building on the corner of Antrim Road and Bachelor's Walk is well proportioned and detailed, but is not of sufficient intereest to warrant listing

General comments

This record was completed without access to original source material held by the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.