Irish Linen Centre & Lisburn Museum

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A Detached multi-bay two-storey stucco-fronted former market house with clock tower, originating in the late seventeenth-century, remodelled c.1810 with replacement clock tower, remodelled again c.1890, giving present appearance. Restored c.1994 for use as Linen Centre & Museum with large modern west wing added. The building is rectangular on plan, with the clock tower to the west, breakfront elevation to the east and central recessed section to the north and south elevations.

M-profile hipped natural slate roofs with terracotta ridge tiles, lead valleys and lead hips, set behind parapet wall with dentilated eaves to cornice supporting ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering. Square-profile cast-iron downpipes. Rendered chimneystacks with cornice coping and terracotta pots. Painted rendered walling with rusticated rendered quoins, architrave surrounds with keystones to all window and door openings and continuous impost moulding to ground floor. First floor window openings have a continuous sill moulding with balustrade to all corner windows, continuing as a balustrade parapet to the north and south recessed sections. Segmental-headed window openings to the first floor with horizontally-glazed 2/2 timber sash windows. Round-headed window openings with masonry sills to the ground floor set within arched recesses having 3/6 timber sash windows and incorporated fanlights.

Neo-classical sandstone ashlar clock tower and copper cupola rising from the west elevation with its base enclosed within the double-height glazed entrance hall. Built on a square-plan redbrick and squared red sandstone foundation of a seventeenth-century tower, the present tower has three stages above roof level. The lower stage is square on plan, with a large round-headed window opening to each side having replacement 10/15 timber sash window to each opening and incorporated a fanlight. Cornice to the top of the lower stage supporting an octagonal middle stage with a clock face to four sides and the other four sides have paired Corinthian columns on plinth blocks supporting a full entablature with fluted frieze, stepped out over the columns and supporting an urn on base above. The urns front four sides of the upper stage with a louvered oculus to the other four sides, small cornice moulding above forming the base to the replacement pointed copper dome and copper spirelet.

East elevation has a single-bay breakfront with single segmental-headed window opening to the first floor, architrave surround and segmental pediment supported on pair of console brackets with slender panels below. To the ground floor is a tripartite arrangement of arched window openings, that to the centre having a further tripartite arrangement of round-headed window openings and elaborate foliate stuccowork to the recess. The architrave surrounds drop to the plinth course with masonry sills and iron grilles to each opening. The recessed bays to either side have a window opening to the first floor, as per above, and a blind arched panel to the ground floor.

The north and south elevations are almost identical with a balustrade parapet to the recessed section to the centre and a single central round-headed door opening to the north elevation, two round-headed door openings to the south elevation. Door opening to the north elevation have a pair of Doric columns on plinth blocks supporting plain entablature and batwing fanlight above with replacement timber panelled door. The two round-headed door openings to the south elevation have a pair of replacement timber panelled doors each with lintel cornice and batwing fanlight.

Setting:
Situated in the centre of Lisburn City and set on a triangular island site on Market Square, the Museum is surrounded by hard landscaping on all sides.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Cast-iron
Walling Painted stucco
Windows Timber sash

Historical information

Lisburn Market House was built in the early eighteenth century, incorporating elements of an earlier building. It has undergone several phases of remodelling and changes of usage, from market house to assembly rooms and now museum.

For some time it was thought that Lisburn market house was destroyed entirely in the fire of 1707 that engulfed the town, and rebuilt thereafter, but a survey of the evidence by Mackey concludes that walls with red sandstone arches that were exposed during conversion of the building to a museum may date from the seventeenth century. (Mackey, 1986-7)

There are several
references to the market house in Lisburn in the seventeenth century. The first map of the town of ‘Lisnegarvey’ shows a rectangular building on the site of the present museum which is labelled as a schoolhouse. By 1641 reference is made to the ‘market house’ as being the scene of fierce fighting during the rebellion of that year. Another market house that had been built by Maurice Griffiths ‘at his own expense’ is documented in letters to Lord Conway in 1666 but it is not certain that this is the same building or a replacement following the rebellion in the late seventeenth century, depicting a market house of a similar design to today’s building. (Mackey, 1986-7)

Mackey gives a conjectural drawing of the market house that was rebuilt after the fire of 1707 as a simple two-storey hall with an arcade below and a bell tower. The base of a square tower still survives in front of the present tower. Mackey explains that the earlier steeple was rebuilt about 1772 but the present tower and cupola were erected about 1808 in a slightly different position which would have forced the alteration of the roof, giving it a lower central ridge. Dances and dinners were frequently held in the assembly rooms, other types of meeting also took place there, for example when John Wesley preached there in 1756. (Mackey, 1986-7)

The OS Memoirs describe the older market house as, “The market house, which was very accommodating to the public as a shelter and stand for commodities, had 3 large arch gates on either side and 1 on the east end, all through which carts, cars etc could pass and repass on market days and also useful on other days in various respects, and had to be closed up with boards at the last rebellion of Ireland, to form a temporary barrack and stand for the cavalry and infantry occasionally. However, in a few years subsequent to the rebellion the gates were closed up with stone and lime and the under part made into different apartments to serve different ends. It was about that period that the wings were built to it, one of which was designed to accommodate the sale in lieu of the market house.” (Mackey, 1986-7, OS Memoirs, p.42-3)

In the first decade of the nineteenth century various alterations and additions were carried out to the building at the behest of the Marquess of Hertford. David McBlain and his son James built the tower and cupola, the market house arches were closed up and two new wings added. These new rooms were used to store market produce and for a gymnasium, lending library and reading room. Mackey’s paper gives a drawing of the market house as it may have looked at this stage. (Mackey, 1986-7)

OS Memoirs comment that the market house is, “a fine building. This useful edifice with its handsome cupola and clock, was erected and is kept in repair by the Marquis of Hertford, for the accommodation of the inhabitants. It has of late undergone many improvements. A wrought metal railing and entrance gate now surrounds it, which adds very much to its appearance. A gymnasium has recently been fitted up in the lower part of the house. Over the market house is a spacious and elegant assembly room, where a ball was formerly held every fortnight.” The building is captioned ‘Market Ho[use] on the first edition OS map of 1833 and the Townland Valuation 1828-40) lists it at a valuation of £40. Dimensions are given for the house, tower and south and north wings. (OS memoirs, p.11)

Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) values the ‘Market House’ at £55 and also gives dimensions.

In 1888 the market house was remodelled and assumed its present form, with four additional rectangular towers to the first floor. Balustrading, moulding and additional ornamentation were added. The work was paid for by Sir Richard Wallace and included a bell and illuminated clock dial, costing in all £2000. Mackey opines that John MacHenry would have supervised the works. In 1901, Wallace’s heir Sir John Murray Scott gave the building to Lisburn Urban Council. Annual Revisions record the change in ownership in 1902 and show that in 1922 the buildings was still in use as ‘assembly rooms, caretakers apartments, newsroom and billiard room’. In 1979 it was decided to convert it to a museum, which opened in 1981. (Mackey, 1986-7)

Since the rebuilding of the market house in 1708 houses and shops have been built up against its west end. OS memoirs remarks that, “Mr Ward’s house next the market was the first built after the fire. It has the following inscription, ‘1708, the year before this house was erected, the town was burnt the year before; people therein may be directed, God hath judgements still in store. And that they do not him provoke, to give to them a second stroke, the stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner.’” (OS Memoirs, p.7)

Latterly, the houses and shops were gradually taken over by George Duncan and Sons drapery business. George Duncan was a muslin manufacturer who opened a ‘Woollen and Manchester [cotton] Warehouse’ in one of the shops in 1835 and soon expanded his business so that his shop entirely fronted the market square. Mackey’s “Lisburn, the Town and its people” shows the store in 1884 and at the beginning of the twentieth century when it had been remodelled with an “exuberant Edwardian Arts and Crafts exterior...A contemporary advertisement for this ‘busy emporium’ stated that ‘each Department and Showroom is spacious and well Lighted and for comfort and equipment is surpassed by few city houses’.” (Mackey 2000, p.42, 54)

In 1994 the museum building was extended to designs by Chaplin Hall Black Douglas. The extension houses the Linen Centre, a focus for the study of the linen industry in Ireland and has won several awards including the RIBA Regional Award, an RIAI Regional Award and a Civic Trust Award. (Evans et al, p.126)

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/1/61A – 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. Evans, D; Hackett, M; Hall, A; Larmour, P; Rattray, C “Modern Ulster Architecture” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 2006
2. Mackey, B “The Market House and Assembly Rooms, Lisburn” in Lisburn Historical Foundation Journal, Vol 6, 1986-7
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
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

A detached multi-bay two-storey stucco-fronted former market house with clock tower, originating in the late seventeenth-century, remodeled c.1810 with replacement clock tower, remodelled again c.1890. The building has an importanrt location in the centre of Lisburn and is well proportioned and detailed. Much of the architectural fabric is intact. Restored in recent years and converted into a Museum. The recent renovations of its elaborate clock tower have exposed early red sandstone fabric, dating back to the seventeenth-century. Although the interior has been modified as a response to the changing requirement of the buildings usage, the layout and features of interest have largely remained unaltered. The former Market house is an important civic building and is of architectural and historic interest and is a fitting location for a museum dedicated to the linen industry.