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LISBURN HISTORIC QUARTER
MARKET SQUARE
Take a stroll through Market Square and you will see a number of impressive buildings and historic sites which tell the history of Lisburn throughout the ages.
This area, which was first laid out in the 17th century, is now known as the Historic Quarter. In 1611 James I granted the lands of Killultagh in South West County Antrim to Sir Fulke Conway. During the 1620s, Conway laid out Market Square, Castle Street (High Street), Bridge Street and Bow Street (Bow Lane) as we see them today. The great fire of 1707 destroyed the original buildings but the current attractive 18th century streetscape was rebuilt on the original layout and has remained largely unchanged to the present day.
FIRST LISBURN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
First Lisburn Presbyterian Church was founded prior to 1687, and it is one of the oldest Presbyterian congregations in Ireland. The original church was destroyed in the “great fire of 1707”. The church was built on its present site in 1768, rebuilt on a larger scale in 1829 and later remodelled and enlarged in 1873. A new stone frontage extension was dedicated in 1970, after some properties were demolished to make it more visible from Market Square.
An interesting internal feature is the Resurrection Window, which is composed of broken glass from the original stained glass windows, which were destroyed by terrorism in 1981.
STATUE OF BRIGADIER GENERAL JOHN NICHOLSON
By F.W. Pomeroy, this very striking and vigorous piece of work was unveiled in 1922, in memory of Nicholson's military valour. Nicholson was commissioned in the Bengal Infantry in 1839, and fought in the First and Second Sikh Wars in the 1840s and 1850s. During the Indian Mutiny of 1857, he took charge of the assault on Delhi. He was mortally wounded and died nine days later at the age of 35. Nicholson was not born in Lisburn, as stated on the statue, but he did spend much of his childhood in his mother's family home on Castle Street, after his father's early death. Inside the cathedral is a very impressive memorial wall tablet which depicts the assault on Delhi.
WALLACE FOUNTAIN
Cast from a design by Charles Lebourg, this distinctive fountain was given to Lisburn by Sir Richard Wallace. Of the five originally given, only two survive. The second surviving fountain can be found in Castle Gardens. The remarkable story behind these fountains has its origins in the siege of Paris during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. In 1871 Wallace, who was residing in Paris, commissioned and erected 50 drinking fountains. Several of these fountains can still be found in Paris today. These are known as “Les Wallaces”.
IRISH LINEN CENTRE/LISBURN MUSEUM
The Irish Linen Centre/Lisburn Museum is housed in the former 17th century Market House, where cottage weavers brought their cloth to sell. An elegant upper floor Assembly Room, where balls and social assemblies were held, was added in the 18th century. The building continued as a civic meeting place in the 19th and 20th centuries. Lisburn Museum was founded in 1979 and the multi award winning Irish Linen Centre was added in 1994.
The building houses a permanent exhibition on the Irish Linen industry, where you can learn how linen cloth is made from the flax plant to wearable fabric. On display are a number of exciting products, which range from linen from the tomb of Tutankhamun to napkins woven for royal use. The exhibition contains objects relating to the Huguenots, Coulson's damask manufacture and the Barbour thread making collection. There are also exhibitions, which change on a regular basis, depicting subjects such as local history and art. An original sandstone plaque, which contains a very apt message regarding the 1707 fire, is on display inside the museum.
HANGING IN MARKET SQUARE
Henry Munro, a linen draper from Lisburn, and leader of the United Irishmen at the Battle of Ballynahinch in June 1798, was captured, brought to trial in Lisburn and executed in Market Square. The scaffold was erected close to what is now the Irish Linen Centre shop, in full view of his house. After the execution, his head was severed from his body. It is reputed that his head was then placed on a pike at the corner of the Market House and left to rot for several months, as a deterrent to others.
LISBURN CATHEDRAL
Sir Fulke Conway built the Church of St Thomas as his private chapel in 1623, after he had completed his manor house (Lisburn castle) in Castle Gardens. The church was destroyed in the Rebellion of 1641 and again in the “great fire” of 1707. In 1662 the church was granted cathedral status by Charles II. The foundation stone for the present church (the third on this site) was laid in 1708. 
Further damage was caused to the cathedral in the early hours of August 1st 1914 when local suffragettes attempted to bomb the cathedral using sticks of dynamite. Fortunately, only the east window of the church was damaged.
The building contains many fine memorials to prominent citizens, including two pictorial stained glass windows in memory of Sir Richard Wallace and a wall tablet, which commemorates the life of Brigadier General John Nicholson. The strong Huguenot association with the cathedral is reflected both inside the cathedral and in the surrounding graveyard.
The graveyard contains many elaborate tombstones. However, to the right as you enter the front gates of the church, one very plain little head stone stands out because of the following inscription “John Young, aged five years and eight months, assassinated 23rd August 1822”. An inquest was held on the body of the child which found that “the said John Young came to his death in consequence of having been tied to a cow's tail, the property of John Woods, by Patrick Maguire, and that the said tying was not through malice, but youthful inadvertence by said Maguire”.
Just before you leave Market Square to travel up Railway Street on the right you will see one of Lisburn's landmark buildings – Castle Buildings.
CASTLE BUILDINGS (corner of Railway Street and Castle Street)
“The Bass Buildings” as they are now known are just about to pass out of the hands of the local family who have owned them for over a century. The origins of the company are in the 1860s and it was formed into a limited company in 1890 when in November of that year the premises ohttp://www.lisburncity.gov.uk/news-and-events/whats-on/f Alexander Boyd & Company Ltd, opened to the public. The building was one of the first buildings in the town to be lit by electricity and was described at the time as “one of the most complete, extensive and ornate establishments to be found in any provincial town in Ireland”.
RAILWAY STREET
Railway Street was originally known as Jackson's Lane. Jackson's Lane began at Market Square and ended at Michael Jackson's Lane on the Magheralave Road. This was a working class lane. In 1819 weavers, shoemakers, servants, a bookbinder and most remarkably, a button-mould maker and a tobacco spinner, occupied the houses. By 1844 the name had changed to Railway Street.
RAILWAY STATION
The station was designed by William Henry Mills and built by the Great Northern Railway Company around 1890. History was made on Monday 12th August 1839; when the first passenger train ever to run in Ulster left Belfast at 7am and 23 minutes later it arrived in Lisburn, after a one-minute stop in Dunmurry. Such was the novelty of this new form of transport that approximately 3000 people used the train on its first day. When it became known that the trains would run on Sundays, there was a great outcry, “souls going to the devil at sixpence a time”. In recent years the station has been an award winner in the Translink Ulster in Bloom Competition.
BRIDGE COMMUNITY CENTRE
Erected in 1890 by the Lisburn Temperance Union, as an Institute to provide leisure facilities for working men, on a site given by Sir Richard Wallace. The style chosen was a “free treatment of Italian” with marble tiling in the porches. First Lisburn Presbyterian ChurchThe centre had reading and recreation rooms, in order to provide an alternative to the “evil influence of the public house”.
 Membership was open to “all young men of 15 and upward, of good moral character”. Ladies were permitted in a separate reading room, but only after 6pm each day. The first President of the Temperance Union was James N Richardson of Lissue, a member of the family business of Richardson Sons & Owden, one of the largest linen bleachers in the Lagan Valley. Since the 1980s, the multi purpose Bridge Community Centre has provided a base for many community groups and, true to its original purpose, is a venue for a wide range of activities.
Travel up Railway Street and turn left into Castle Street
CASTLE STREET
Formerly known as High Street, in complete contrast to many of the surrounding streets, this was the most fashionable street in Lisburn, being home to the wealthier citizens. . Amongst the residents were names, which are synonymous with Lisburn, for example Sir Richard Wallace, Crommelin, Richardson and Barbour, to name but a few. In 1819 the residents were listed as gentlemen, ladies, doctors, schoolmasters, linen merchants, naval officers and clergymen
FRENCH CHURCH, FORMER TOWN HALL
The blue plaque identifies the site of Lisburn's 18th century French Huguenot church. In 1698, a Huguenot, Louis Crommelin, was appointed by William III as Overseer of the Royal Linen Manufacture in Ireland. Crommelin, together with a number of Huguenot families, settled in Lisburn, where they erected a French school and a church. By the early 19th century, the number of Huguenots had declined. The church was closed and its congregation moved across the road to Lisburn Cathedral, whose burying place they had used from the beginning. The building became Lisburn Courthouse. In 1883 the estate office of Sir Richard Wallace was built on the adjoining site. The two buildings eventually became the Lisburn Town Hall and remained as civic offices until the opening the new Civic Centre in 2001.
CASTLE HOUSE
Completed in 1880, this was the private residence of Sir Richard Wallace (1818-1890). In 1914 this imposing mansion became the Municipal Technical Institute, now Lisburn Institute of Further and Higher Education. Wallace's name will always be remembered in Lisburn because of Wallace High School, Wallace Park and Wallace Avenue. Internationally he was known as a patron of the arts, whose collection was gifted to the nation and forms the world famous Wallace Collection in London.
COUNTY ANTRIM INFIRMARY
The hospital was originally established in Bow Lane (now Bow Street) in 1767, but in the early 1880s it moved to its current site. In 1882 Dr George St George was appointed as its chief and the hospital was much improved with financial assistance from local benefactors, such as the Barbour family and from locally run events. This building has now been converted into private dwellings. Next door to the left, was a home for nurses, which was presented to the Country Antrim Infirmary by the people of Lisburn as a memorial of both the Golden and Diamond Jubilees of Queen Victoria
WAR MEMORIAL
War memorial by HC Fehr, was unveiled in 1923, after the Great War. It now records the names of those from Lisburn who also fought and died in the 2nd World War, the Korean War and the Falklands.
CASTLE WALL (inside Castle Gardens)
The gateway through the courtyard wall of Lisburn castle survived the great fire of 1707 and a datestone, bearing the date 1677, is still visible today.
CASTLE GARDENS
In the early 17th Century Sir Fulke Conway, from a Welsh family with estates in Warwickshire, choose this site as the perfect location for his fortified manor house (castle). He had come to Ireland as part of a military campaign against the O'Neills. In 1622 the house was near completion and was described as a “brick and timber-framed symmetrical E-shaped mansion facing westward towards the town and secured by a walled enclosure divided into several courts”. In recent times archaeological explorations have uncovered a variety of artefacts dating from the early 17th century onwards. These include pottery from Devon, Germany and other continental countries, which show the wealth and international connections of Sir Fulke Conway and his successors. Also two very rare  structures in Ireland were discovered which date from the 17th century a perron and a gazebo (further information on www.castlegardenslisburn.com).
Unfortunately, the castle was destroyed in the accidental great fire of 1707. However, the gateway through the courtyard wall survived the fire and a date stone, which contains the date 1677, is still visible today. The gardens also contain two features relating to the life and works of Sir Richard Wallace, the Wallace Fountain and the Wallace Memorial. Close to the Memorial is a cannon, a trophy from the Crimean War. Lady Wallace's heir, Sir John Murray Scott, gave this public park to the town council in 1901.
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