Gill's Almhouses

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached five-bay one-and-a-half-storey Jacobethan almshouse, dated 1842 and built to designs by Charles Lanyon, located at the north of Governor’s Place. Rectangular on plan, facing south; with one-and-a-half-storey gabled projecting end bays.

Pitched natural slate roof, hipped at gable junctions; blue/black clay angled ridge tiles; two red brick two-stage chimneystacks at ridges (each second stage has two square chimneystacks set diagonally with red clay chimneypots); half-round cast-iron gutters. Walling is painted smooth render over splayed-and-moulded plinth with rendered quoins to projections and gables with verge coping (corbelled out to eaves); rendered masonry finials. Windows are square-headed with rendered architraves and splayed sills (unless otherwise stated). All windows are replacement uPVC casements.

Principal (south) elevation has one-and-a-half-storey gabled projecting bays to either end and is centrally abutted by slightly projecting full-height storm porch. Exposed sections have a single window each. Porch has door with apex featuring shield date plaque (illegible) over marble date plaque inscribed: “ALDERMAN GILL’S / ALMSHOUSES / ERECTED 1842.” Door is square-headed painted timber with four moulded panels set in a four-centred-arched opening with two-panelled tympanum, splayed and rebated rendered architrave and hoodmould with foliated labels. Cheeks are blank. Projecting bay apexes have single lancet with hoodmould and foliated labels over ground floor tripartite mullioned window (with centre window heightened by an additional light) and stop-ended labelmould, inner cheeks are blank.

West elevation has a single window inset to four-centred-arched former door opening with rendered tympanum.

Rear (north) elevation is symmetrical with two windows flanking each side of square-headed replacement timber door with overlight, window are all without architraves. Left and right ends are abutted by lean-to coal sheds.

East elevation is detailed as west.

The almshouse is situated on Governor’s Place on the corner of Essex Street and faces the coast with parkland and the remains of the town walls (HB22/08/009) to west. It is in view of Carrickfergus Castle to southeast and within range of the spire of St. Nicholas Church of Ireland Church (HB22/08/001) to northeast. There is a modern freestanding stone in the parkland to west with a concrete panel inscribed: “TO THE MEMORY OF / THOMAS DELANEY / 1947-1979 / ARCHAEOLOGIST / WHOSE EXCAVATIONS 1972-1979 / DID MUCH TO SECURE / FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS / A KNOWLEDGE OF / THE BURIED HISTORY OF / CARRICKFERGUS.”

Roof: Natural Slate
Walling: Painted smooth render
Windows: Timber casement
Rainwater Goods: Half-round cast-iron gutters

Historical information

The Almshouses are first shown on the second edition OS map of 1857. Griffith's Valuation of 1859 records ‘Gill’s Almhouses and offices’, leased from the trustees. The property is valued at £12, later crossed through and recorded as exempt.

The datestone is inscribed 1842, and the houses were built to "designs by Charles Lanyon, the then county surveyor…however his original plans of 1839 were not accepted as they stood; in 1841, the trustee resolved “that Mr Lanyon be requested to alter his plan so as to give the additional accommodation of a loft to each house over the kitchen and room, with a step ladder up to each”.’
Although originally constructed of brick ‘this was already posing problems by 1850, and the Trustee in 1852, agreed to take proposals for “stone finishing with cement and painting”.

The structure originally contained four dwellings but was remodelled in 1997 by Edward Cooke and now comprises two houses. It is part of a group of Almshouses that include a group of six in Ellis Street. Brett quoted a contemporary record: “six houses in Gills’ Row, first opened for pensioners, October 23rd 1820; four houses in Governor’s Place, ditto, January 15th 1842.” These almshouses were built to replace earlier ones on Essex Street, constructed between 1766-1767 that had by 1829 so badly deteriorated that in the words of the surveying architect at the time: they were “not worth laying money on.” (Brett 1994; also Brett, Buildings of Co. Antrim, 231).

In 1980, the almshouses were restored by the James Butcher Housing as dwellings for the elderly.

References

Primary Sources:
1. PRONI OS/6/1/52/1 - First Edition OS Map (1832)
2. PRONI OS/6/1/52/2 - Second Edition OS Map (1857)
3. PRONI OS/6/1/52/3 - Third Edition OS Map (1901-2)
4. PRONI VAL/2/A/1/52A - Griffiths Valuation Map
5. PRONI VAL/2/B/22D - Griffiths Valuation Fieldbook (1859)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/7/7 A-C - Valuation Revisions (1894-1929)

Secondary Sources:
1. Brett, Charles. Buildings of County Antrim. UAHS, 1996.
2. Brett, Charles. “Letter to Mrs. Susan Crowther, B.Sc., Dip.Arch., [of 70A Marshallstown Road,
Carrickfergus].” 12 Apr 1994.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

A charming symmetrical five-bay one-and-a-half-storey Tudor Revival almshouse, dated 1842, and situated within view of the harbour, castle and spire of St. Nicholas’s Church of Ireland Church. Known as the “Alderman Gill Almshouse, Governor’s Place,” it is a nineteenth-century rebuild of a group of almshouses founded in Carrickfergus by Alderman Gill in the eighteenth century, which include “Alderman Gill’s Almshouses, Ellis Street” (HB22/07/001A-C). The buildings are especially notable because of their architect, Charles Lanyon.