15 Main Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Much altered and extended single storey house set at the N end of a terrace on the W side of Main Street, originally built c.1833 (or earlier) as a police station.
Front E facade has a recent timber sheeted and glazed door to the left of centre. To the left of this is a large-ish square window with PVC frame. With a similar window to the right. The N gable is blank. The rear is dominated by a large single storey (two level) return with two PVC windows to the N facade and PVC ‘patio’ doors to the gable end. Also attached to this gable end is a row of two small, rubble built, gabled outbuildings. The outbuilding to the W used a be a small police cell and is inscribed ‘BUILT 1833’ whilst that to the E appears to be inscribed ‘CAMPBELL S 1880’.
The entire facade of the house is finished in rough cast. The main roof is gabled and covered in pan tiles. The return roof is similar but has two large Velux windows. Two rendered chimney stacks to main roof. PVC rw goods.

Historical information

This building was originally a police station and is shown a such on the OS map of 1834. The former cell (now an outbuilding) to the rear is inscribed ‘Built 1883’, but this date may only refer to the cell itself and not the main building, which may be older. The valuation returns of 1835 simply refer to the property as a ‘Police Station’ without giving any other detail, but the contemporary OS memoirs noted that ‘there are two police stationed here from Ballynahinch which is their headquarters’. By the time of the second valuation (1861) the property appears to have become a private dwelling house.
The original building does not appear to have possessed a return and may have merely consisted of two rooms with the cell and stable to the rear, however a return of some sort appears to have been added by c.1860. The present return is largely of 1980s construction however.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI OS map 1st ed. 1834, Co. Down 17.
2 Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), p. 91.
3 PRONI VAL 1B/335 p.52 1st valuation, Killinchy parish, Killinchy td., c.1835.
4 PRONI OS map 1st rev. 1859-60, Co. Down 17.
5 PRONI 2nd valuation, Killinchy parish, Killinchy td., 1861.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Small-ish single storey house which is noted as serving as a police station in c.1833. Today this property has an overwhelmingly modern appearance with little trace of its considerable age or former existence.