Lanyon, Lynn and Lanyon


Lanyon, Lynn & Lanyon, Civil Engineers and Architects was a 19th-century firm working mainly in Dublin and Belfast, and the leading architectural firm in Belfast during the 1860s. Its partners were Charles Lanyon, William Henry Lynn, and Charles' son John Lanyon.
Charles Lanyon was the head of the firm and its most famous architect. In 1854, he took Lynn, his former apprentice, into partnership. Their projects included the "Lombardic" Gothic-style Sinclair Seaman's Presbyterian Church in Belfast, and the Venetian Gothic banks at Newtownards, County Down, and Dungannon, County Tyrone.
Lanyon, Lynn & Lanyon was created when John Lanyon became junior partner in 1860. The partnership with Lynn was dissolved in 1872.

Projects

Designs for buildings and other projects by Lanyon, Lynn & Lanyon include:
BuildingDateLocationStyle and remarks
Sion Mill1853Sion Mills, County Tyronelinen mill
Sandford Road Church of IrelandRanelagh, Dublinfirst Dublin commission for the firm
Unitarian Church1861–1863St. Stephen's Green, Dublindescribed in Lynn's obituary as "the best example extant of a modern Gothic church on a narrow street frontage"
St. Andrew's Church1862–1866St Andrew Street, Dublin"an ambitious Gothic church on a cramped site"
Chester Town Hall1862–1869Chester"Lynn, seemingly ignoring the request for an 'economical' building, incorporated numerous fancy Gothic features and utilised two types of local sandstone, pink and grey"
Belfast Castle1862–1870Cavehill Country Park, BelfastScottish Baronial style in sandstone, with "striking" serpentine Italianate stairway; cost overruns and the family's depleted fortune delayed completion
West Church1863Ballymoney Road, Ballymenablack basalt in Decorated Gothic style; gutted by fire in 1926 and restored
Charles Sheils Buildings1868Downpatrick, County Downseries of almshouses with a bell tower
Clarence Place HallMay Street, Belfaststyle has been compared to Chester Town Hall;
Linen warehouse for Moore and Weinberg186416–18 Donegall Square, North Belfastyellow-grey brick, with interior said to be "specially arranged for carrying on the linen business in all departments"; now Linen Hall Library
St. Thomas Church1869–1870Belfast"one of the grandest and most fully finished examples of High Victorian Gothic ecclesiastical architecture"; white sandstone decorated with red sandstone bands and colored marble discs and s; a notice of the laying of the foundation stone defines the style as "Gothic, of the Early French period"
Dowdstown House1870near Navan in Leinsterdescribed as using "many of the picturesque tricks" characteristic of the firm
Portrush Town Hall1870–1872corner of Mark and Kerr, Portrush, County Antrim"immensely vigorous high-Victorian building" with a "hotch-potch of styles"; Scottish Baronial with crow-stepped gables and "witch's hat" turret; red brick with bands of cream and black brickwork