Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB17/09/022 A

Address :
Post Office 1 Tirkelly Hill Road Ballyroney Banbridge County Down BT32 5EW

Townland:
Ballyroney

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Survey 2:
B1

Date of Listing:
25/10/1982 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
House

Former Use
House

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
238/12

IG Ref:
J2208 3774

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Owner Category

Private

Exterior Description And Setting

A two-storey three-bay Victorian dwelling and shop built c.1845. L-shaped plan form prominently located at the junction of Seafin Road and Tierkelly Hill Road, in the village of Ballyroney. Hipped natural slate roof with clay hip and ridge tiles; smooth render chimneystack with cavetto mouldings; plain timber soffits with moulded eaves brackets; ogee aluminium rainwater goods. Ruled-and-lined painted rendered walling. 2/2 timber sliding sash windows, horns and chamfered surrounds; square-headed at ground floor with projecting masonry cills; segmental arched at first floor with continuous moulded cill course. Timber raised-and-fielded four panelled entrance door with bolection mouldings and central divide; margin-paned side-lights with panelled aprons partitioned with narrow moulded panelled pilasters; fan lights with horizontal glazing bars set into elliptical-arched opening with chamfered surrounds with projected key-block impost and plinth block. The principal elevation faces east and is asymmetrically arranged. House is set back; left bay containing shop to ground floor return and is 2 windows deep. The front door is located right of centre; paired ground floor window to the right. Three first floor windows directly over ground floor openings. Symmetrical ground floor shop front with segmental-arched quadripartite windows flanking a timber sheeted door with segmental-arched tripartite over light; paired first floor windows over. The right cheek of the projection comprises two first floor windows. The left cheek runs flush with the left elevation (see left elevation). The left elevation is asymmetrically arranged comprising two ground and first floor windows grouped slightly left of centre. Deep painted plinth. The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged. To centre, four-panelled timber door to flat-roofed single-storey porch with fixed lights to cheeks; centrally located at ground floor. Full-size and diminutive window to the left; two slightly diminished-in-height windows to the right. Rounded-headed timber sliding sash landing light with coloured margin panes located on the first floor left of centre; two windows to the right. Small single-storey shed abutting the ground floor far left; abutting boundary wall. The right elevation is symmetrically arranged comprising two first floor windows. Setting Immediately to the front of the shop is a telephone kiosk (HB17/09/022B); to the south is the church hall associated with the adjacent Ballyroney Presbyterian Church (HB17/09/008). Linear two-storey rubble masonry laid-to-courses, outbuilding with brick surrounds; pitched slate roof with wall-headed dormer; timber sheeted doors and replacement timber fixed lights; high rendered yard wall with enlarged squared brick piers with pyramidal caps and wrought-iron gates enclosing the west of the yard. Railings to enclosed front garden (gravelled) accessed by gate; masonry piers and coping. Roofing: Natural slate Walling: Painted render Windows: Timber RWG: Aluminium

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

The two-storey Victorian shop and dwelling at Ballyroney was constructed between 1833 and 1859 (c.1845) first appearing on the second edition of the Ordnance Survey map in 1859 as an L-shaped building on the crossroads of the Tirkelly Hill and Seafin Roads. Griffith’s Valuation notes that the property, valued at £5 was used as a dwelling and let by a Mr. William Ingram to James Bingham, a local merchant. James Bingham established a general grocery store from this site and also operated a post office on the Lackan Road (now demolished – for photographs of the former Ballyroney Post Office on Lackan Road see Young, p. 43). In 1885 the Annual Revisions note that the general store was increased in value to £6 due to the construction of the two-storey slated outbuilding to the rear of the site. The 1901 Census notes that James Bingham (61, Presbyterian) was a Sub-postmaster and Merchant and resided at the general grocers shop with his wife Susanna (57) and their son James M. Bingham (31) who worked as a general assistant and farmer. The census building return described the building as a first class dwelling and grocers shop that consisted of seven rooms. James Bingham died in 1909, leaving possession of the grocery shop and the neighbouring post office businesses to his son James M. Bingham (PRONI Wills). In 1911 James lived with his wife Eliza (21) and his widowed mother; the grocery shop was then described as a second class shop and dwelling and possessed a number of farm offices including a stable, two cowhouses, a dairy piggery, a boiling house and two barns located in the outbuilding to the rear of the site. Upon coming into possession of the family business James M. Bingham purchased the grocers shop outright and continued to reside there by the end of the Annual Revisions in 1929. Young notes that the Bingham’s were farmers from Lackan townland and James Bingham’s father John opened the post office on the Lackan Road in 1864. The Grocers shop on the crossroads of the Tirkelly Hill and Seafin Roads was opened sometime before 1859 and was presumably partially stocked with the Bingham’s own farmed goods. The family business continued at the site until the 1950s when the post office on the Lackan Road was closed and the Crothers family came into possession of the grocers shop. The former general store was converted into a new post office and from the 1950s Maureen Crothers operated as postmistress for the area (Young, pp 43-44). The red Telephone kiosk outside the post offices was installed in between 1935 and c. 1956 (see HB17/09/022B). The Post Office was listed in 1982 and in 1997 Royal Mail included the picturesque Victorian shop and its Telephone kiosk in a commemorative set of four postage stamps which depicted a post office from each of the four regions of the United Kingdom. These stamps were the post office at Haroldswick in the Shetland Islands; Painswick in Gloucestershire; Beddegelert in Gwynedd and the post office in Ballyroney, which was used on the 63 pence stamp for Northern Ireland (Young). References Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/3/42/1 – First edition Ordnance Survey map 1833 2. PRONI OS/6/3/42/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey map 1859 3. PRONI OS/6/3/42/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey map 1901-1902 4. PRONI OS/6/3/42/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey map 1919-1920 5. PRONI VAL/1/A/3/42 – Townland Valuation map 1833 6. PRONI VAL/1/B/357A+B – Townland Valuation c. 1830 7. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/59/A – Griffith’s Valuation 1862 8. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/24A – Annual Revisions 1864-1878 9. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/24B – Annual Revisions 1879-1889 10. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/24C – Annual Revisions 1889-1897 11. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/24D – Annual Revisions 1898-1911 12. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/24E – Annual Revisions 1912-1929 13. PRONI Wills Catalogue (16 June 1909) 14. Census of Ireland (1901 / 1911) Secondary Sources 1. Johannessen, N., ‘Telephone boxes’ Princes Risborough: Shire, 1994. 2. Young, A. F., ‘Old Rathriland, Hilltown and Ballyroney’ Ayrshire: Stenlake Publishing, 2002.

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

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

Historic Interest

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

Evaluation

A two-storey three-bay Victorian dwelling and shop built c.1845. The building has retained much of its simple detailing and character, including the original shop front. Although the shop is no longer in use, the building has a historical relationship to the local community and survives as a good example of its type, once common in the rural environment now increasingly rare. The grouping with the telephone kiosk (HB17/09/022B) and outbuildings to rear, is of note.

General Comments

The suffix A has been added due to renumbering as part of a group. See also HB17/09/022B.

Date of Survey

13 February 2012