24 Castle Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Terraced three-bay three-storey rendered former townhouse, built c.1712. Rectangular on plan, facing northwest with flat-roofed single-storey extension, and three arches to the ground floor incorporating a two-bay shopfront and a carriage arch giving access to the church yard.

Pitched synthetic slate roof, synthetic ridge tiles, redbrick chimneystack abutting adjacent stack to east, west chimneystack removed and a further redbrick chimneystack rising from the rear elevation. Cast-iron guttering on iron drive-through brackets to convex rendered eaves, cast-iron round guttering. Painted ruled-and-lined rendered walling, with ground floor divided into three rusticated stone arches. Square-headed window openings, flush reveals and painted masonry sills. Timber sash windows, 3/3 to second floor, 6/6 to first floor, no horns, some cylinder glass.

Three-bay three-storey front elevation with three painted rusticated stone arches dividing the ground floor, having corresponding piers and impost mouldings. The west arch incorporates a square-headed carriage arch with iron gates and an iron shield to the arch above. The arch contains two Tudor-style timber supports, dated to c.1960. Two-bay shopfront has twentieth century full-height aluminium-framed shop display window to the centre bay and aluminium-framed glazed door and sidelights to the east bay.

East elevation abutted by No.26.

Three-bay three-storey rear elevation abutted by flat-roofed single-storey extension, c.1950. 6-pane timber casement windows to second floor, replacement timber casement windows to first floor. Access to the upper floors is via a steel bridge built over the extension with hardwood glazed door to the first floor landing.

Roof Synthetic slate/tilee
RWG Cast-iron
Walling Painted ruled-and-lined render
Windows timber sash

Historical information

The building may have been built by the Cathedral Vestry in 1712-3 as a sexton’s house and has undoubtedly been in the ownership of the vestry since the late nineteenth century, although at least part of it was previously in use as a post office.

Field inspection of the building suggests that it may date from the early eighteenth century, and therefore may have been built in the decades following the fire which destroyed Lisburn in 1707. It is possible that the building is that referred to in Cathedral Vestry memoranda, "The small tenement of stone and lime, covered with slate, lying upon the east side of the churchyard of Lisburn, and being a part and corner of the said churchyard, was built by the Rev. Joseph Wilkins, Rector of the Parish of Lisburn, for the use of the Sexton of the said church; to be disposed of by the Rector and church wardens of the same, for the said use. Begun May 19, 1712. Finished August 16, 1713." (quoted in Carmody, p.35)

Unfortunately early valuation maps for Lisburn town have not survived and it is therefore not possible to identify the building with any certainty in the Townland Valuation (1828-40). However, the building appears to have been used as a post office from at least 1852 when Mary Burns is listed as the postmistress in the street directory of that year.

Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) lists the house as the residence of John McClure, who was the post master, and gives dimensions of 8?x8x3 for the house and 3x8x1 for the gateway. A ‘water closet return’ and an outbuilding have been added in at a later date. The house is leased from the Marquis of Hertford and valued at £13.

Robert K Atkinson is the next occupier in 1873 and the lessor is now Sir Richard Wallace, who had inherited the Marquis’s estates. The building is shown on the valuation town plan dating from 1877 to c.1898 as a Post Office but Kee states that the building was a Post Office only until 1876 and this appears to be supported by the evidence from street directories which have John McClure as the postmaster from at least 1858 to 1870. By 1877 the post office is in Railway Street.

From 1880 the house was occupied by the Sexton of Lisburn Cathedral and is shown in valuation records as the property of the Select Vestry of Lisburn Cathedral. In 1902 Anne J Morgan is the occupier and she is listed as the sexton in a 1910 directory. Kee notes in 1976 that the building is an estate agent’s and was the sexton’s house ‘until recently’. The building is now in use as an optometrist’s practice and continues to be owned by the Select Vestry.

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/2/B/1/61B – Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/9A-T – Annual Revisions (1863-1924)
8. PRONI VAL/12/E/40/1/ – Annual Revisions Town Plan (1877-c1898)
9. PRONI VAL/12/E/40/2/ – Annual Revisions Town Plan (1898-c1907)
10. PRONI VAL/12/E/40/4 – Annual Revisions Town Plan (1907-c1927)

Secondary Sources

1. Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1852
2. Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1858-9
3. Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1866
4. Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1870
5. Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1877
6. Belfast and Ulster Towns Directory 1910
7. Carmody, W.P., The Very Rev. M.A. “Lisburn Cathedral and its past Rectors” Belfast: Carswell & Son Ltd, 1926
8. Kee, R “Lisburn Miscellany” Lisburn Historical Society, 1976 (available at www.lisburn.com)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

Mid-terrace three-bay three-storey rendered former house on the south side of Castle Street. Dating from the early eighteenth-century, this house is likely to have been one of the first houses to be erected after the great fire of 1707, along with some of the remainder of the terrace on Castle Street. The building retains its style and proportions; the distinctive arches can be identified in many historic photographs of the street. It has retained many of its historic features including sliding sash windows and some internal joinery. The ground floor was in use as a post-office during the nineteenth-century but has since been converted into modern commercial use with the loss of most internal features. Nestled into the northeast corner of the Cathedral’s plot, this former Sexton’s house with its external appearance and attractive carriage arch, which provides access to the rear of the Cathedral, has group value and forms an important historic component of Castle Street.