19 Bridge Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A three-storey two-bay terraced commercial building with flats to upper floors, dating from the late eighteenth-century and located north of Bridge Street in Lisburn city centre. Rectangular on plan with single-storey gabled return to rear.

Pitched natural slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and tall rendered chimneystacks having terracotta pots. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods. Walling is painted smooth render. Windows are 6/6 timber-framed sliding sash to first floor, and 6/3 to second floor. Early shop front with replacement plate-glass window at ground floor.

The principal elevation faces southwest and is four windows wide to upper floors. To ground floor is an early shop front to left of centre, comprising double-leaf single panel doors with transom light, flanked by panelled pilasters on plinths with carved lion-heads and scrolled capitals (also to far right); to right is a double plate-glass panel framed by a timber moulded “twisted rope" (also to transom light); surmounted by replacement timber fascia with modern painted lettering and a timber replica of the golden lion from the Lion Tea House on projecting timber plinth. To left of shop-front is a double-panelled timber-sheeted door in recess; to right of shop-front is a six raised-and-fielded panel timber door surmounted by a round-headed elongated transom light.

The northwest elevation is abutted by adjoining building.

The northeast (rear) elevation has a window to far left and right at second floor with a diminutive window to right of centre; a window to right at first floor; abutted by a gabled return with two windows.

The southeast elevation is abutted by adjoining building.

Setting:
At the centre of Bridge Street, with Market Square to west, bounded to cemetery of Lisburn Cathedral at rear by cement rendered rubble stone wall.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Smooth render
Windows: Mainly timber framed sash
RWG: 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 one of his first building projects was a timber bridge which formerly stood at the foot of Bridge Street. Bridge Street is shown stretching down to this river-crossing on an early map of Lisburn dating from 1640 which also shows both sides of the street lined with buildings. (Mackey, p.1) 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. (Ulster Star 20/04/2007) Oak beams taken from 34 Bridge Street have been dated by the School of Archaeology and Palaeoecology at Queen’s University Belfast who give an estimated felling date of c1710, suggesting that buildings in Bridge Street were among the earliest to be constructed following the fire. (Turner, p.17)
Little is known of the current building’s early history. A building on the site is shown on Thomas Pattison’s map of 1833 and by 1901 the premises is known to have been in use as a painter’s shop run by William John Heron, a ‘Master Painter’. In 1901 Heron lived above the shop with his wife and their adult daughter Charlotte. By 1911 Charlotte had left the family home, having perhaps married. The census of 1911 records the building as having six rooms and eleven windows to the front façade, suggesting that at this time the shop front was divided into three windows. The shop was later taken over by Jonathan Graham, painter and decorator, who was resident when he died in 1933. (Will of Jonathan Graham)

The building was renovated as part of Bridge Street Townscape Heritage Initiative c2000 and has incorporated elements of the shopfront from the former Golden Lion Tea House which was situated at 59 Bow Street. The lion above the shopfront is a replica of the original golden lion from the Tea House which was donated by Lisburn Historical Society to the museum. The exterior of the original Tea House was severely damaged by a terrorist bomb in 1972, but the door surround and window mullions appear to have survived and have been re-used in the current building. The original Golden Lion Tea House was owned by Jordan Brothers whose name appeared above the shop, but in the late 1880s it was taken over by James Macartney of Cabra and it is his initials that appear in the window mullion. (Lisburn Miscellany)
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 Will of Jonathan Graham, died 22nd July 1933
7. 1901 census online
8. 1911 census online

Secondary Sources

1. Kee, F “Lisburn Miscellany” Lisburn Historical Society, 1976 (available at www.lisburn.com)
2. Jeffers, A “Bridge Street Regeneration in Action” Lisburn Historical Society Journal, Vol 10, 2005-6
3. Mackey, Brian “Lisburn, the Town and its People, 1873-1973” Belfast: Blackstaff Press, 2000
4. Turner, Brian S “Voices from the Street - Bridge Street and the Quay of Lisburn” Lisburn City Centre Management, 2006
5. Ulster Star 20/04/2007

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A well proportioned, restored three-storey two-bay terraced commercial building with flats to upper floors, dating from the late-eighteenth century and located in Bridge Street close to Lisburn city centre. No 19 was restored with Heritage Lottery funding as part of the Lisburn Historic Quarter Initiative (2001), including fenestration and shop-front. Bridge Street was the most important commerical thoroughfare in the city during the 17th and 18th centuries. No 19 has been sensitively restored, with the reuse of an historic shopfront and is an important element within Bridge street and the wider historic city centre.