Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB19/04/002 A

Address :
Eglantine House Harry's Road Carnbane Hillsborough Co. Down

Townland:
Carnbane

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Survey 2:
B2

Date of Listing:
07/02/1977 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:
165-13

IG Ref:
J2455 6090

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Owner Category

Private

Exterior Description And Setting

Detached symmetrical three-bay two-storey over concealed basement stucco-fronted Italianate country house, built c.1800, refurbished c.1845 to the designs of Charles Lanyon. Square on plan facing east with full-height central canted entrance bay and portico, and single-storey over basement wing to south, destroyed by fire c.1990, currently being re-constructed to the interior and restored to the exterior. Range of two-storey rendered townhouses to the south, built c.2008, in the form of a range of outbuildings. Hipped natural slate roofs with lead ridges behind balustrade parapet wall incorporating decorative rendered chimneystacks with decorative clay pots. Replacement metal rainwater goods breaking through the walls below parapet level. Painted rendered walling with moulded plinth course, continuous moulded sill courses and moulded cornices above ground floor with further dentilated cornice below parapet level. Reticulated rusticated quoins to ground floor, plain rusticated quoins to first floor. Square-headed window openings with architrave surrounds, continuous moulded sill courses and raised and fielded apron panels throughout. Plain entablatures to all ground floor window openings, flanked by foliate console brackets to the ground floor of the front elevation only. All openings re-fenestrated with 6/6 timber sash windows to the first floor, 9/6 to the ground floor. Symmetrical two-storey front elevation, seven windows wide with two-storey central canted entrance bay and balustrade Doric entrance portico. Portico comprises; sandstone paved raised platform and sandstone steps flanked by pair of Doric columns and matching Doric piers to either end supporting architrave, plain frieze and overhanging cornice with mutules having low parapet wall with geometric balustrade. Slender window openings to both cheeks of the portico with matching Doric pilaster abutting the bay. Tall square-headed door opening with original moulded architrave surround flanked by pair of original scrolled foliate console brackets supporting cornice above, all set on exposed redbrick wall. Two-storey over exposed basement south side elevation with two-storey three-sided canted bay to the west end abutted by flat-roofed single-storey over basement wing. Round-headed door opening to the south bay (west elevation) opening onto stone steps flanked by original wrought-iron railing. Two-storey rear west elevation, five windows wide. Two-storey north side elevation with two-storey three-sided canted bay to the west half. Setting Set on an elevated site overlooking pastures to the west with an enclosed yard and restored outbuilding south west converted into housing units, with natural slate roof and roughcast render, and under separate ownership. There is also a new development of townhouses in the form of a complex of outbuildings, further south. Principal former entrance gates with gate lodge on Hillsborough Road (HB19/04/002B), no longer in use, with bitmac avenue leading west to Harry’s Road. Roof Natural slate / lead RWG Replacement metal Walling Painted stucco Windows timber sash

Architects

Historical Information

The original building on the Eglantine Estate likely dates from the late eighteenth century, but it is not clear exactly when it was constructed; however, Rankin states that it was originally intended as a Dower house for the Hill family (Rankin, p. 26). Although it is not named until the first edition of the Ordnance Survey maps in 1834 Eglantine House first appears in 1803 on a survey map of the Kilwarlin estate in the Townland of Carnbane on land which is noted as belonging to Hugh Moore Esq. This map records that Moore’s estate covered 70 Acres and one Rood. Large out-buildings are visible on this grounds plan and in the first Ordnance Survey map three large ‘office houses’ are named along with up to six smaller out-offices. In 1837 the Ordnance Survey Memoirs record Eglantine House as a ‘Gentlemen’s residence’ and that ‘Hugh Moore Esq. of Carnbane has an elegant seat, finely ornamented with plantations of young firs’. In 1825 Hugh Moore was a Justice of the Peace for Co. Down and in one instance received depositions along with the Marquis of Downshire regarding a murder committed in Hillsborough on the night of 8 December 1825 (Hobart). Further, memoirs state that Moore was a subscriber to Blaris school and the local medical dispensary and was a member and contributed funds to the Hillsborough Charitable Society. Hugh Moore also published a book in 1831 titled ‘A dictionary of quotations from various authors in ancient and modern languages’ which was dedicated to the Marquis of Downshire. In 1841 the house passed out of the possession of Hugh Moore to St. Clair Kelburn Mulholland whose family occupied it until 1917 when the last of Mulholland’s daughters died (Rankin, p. 29). Griffith’s Valuation records that the buildings, including the out-offices, were valued at £110, and that the total for the estate was £242. During Mulholland’s occupancy Eglantine House was extensively altered. By 1858 the second edition Ordnance Survey shows a considerable extension built to Eglantine House. Rankin tells us that in c.1841 Charles Lanyon improved the house and refaced it in the neo-classical style adding ‘a central projecting open Doric porch, refurbished the interior, and replaced the two old gate lodges.’ It is possible that Lanyon may have completely rebuilt the house as the recorder believed the building to date from c.1845 and could find no evidence of an earlier style. Rankin states Lanyon installed Eglantine House’s most intriguing feature, an elegantly designed curved stone staircase which rose in two flights before meeting in an upper landing (Rankin, pp 26-27). In 1875 the building was increased in value to £114 but was decreased in value again in 1905 to £104 due to the removal of a gardener’s house on the grounds of the estate. St Clair Mulholland was an established Belfast linen merchant, originally encouraged by the success of his brother, Andrew Mulholland, who owned a spinning mill in York Street. St Clair built his first mill in 1833 and later established the Durham Street Weaving Company in Belfast. In 1850 he retired from the Linen industry and lived out the rest of his life in Eglantine before dying in 1872. His family and friends erected the nearby All Saints Church in memory of him and his late son; it was consecrated in 1875 (Rankin, pp 27-29). The 1901 Census records that Mulholland’s youngest daughter Mary Filgate Mulholland, was the last surviving family member still occupying Eglantine House. At that time the Census confirms Miss Mulholland as the landholder and gives an indication of the extent of her estate which included two stables, one coach house, one harness room, three cow houses, two calf houses, one dairy, two piggery’s, two fowl houses, one boiling house, a barn, a turf house, a potato house, a workshop and a shed; all in all a considerable farm developed, one can presume, over many years. The Annual Revisions show that after Mary’s death in 1917 the house was occupied by a Joseph Coulter and that the value of the house reduced dramatically from £104 in 1906 to around £85 in c.1915-29. It is not clear what caused this great drop in value. The next occupant of Eglantine House was E. T. Green, a manufacturer of animal’s foodstuffs. The house was passed on to his son Professor E.R.R. Green who was the Director of the Institute of Irish Studies at Queens University and who wrote extensively on the history of the Linen industry in Ulster. Anthony Lyle Skyrme and his wife Caro bought Eglantine in 1972 and it remained their family home until c.1979. In 1979-80 the house was sold to J.K. Falloon & Co. of Lisburn who used the premises as an auction venue for a period in the early 1980s. During the later 1980s it was left vacant and in September 1990 was damaged by fire and reduced to a roofless ruin. It was acquired by the present owner in c.2008 and completely restored in 2012. A number of modern cottages have been built on the site of the old estate office houses. References: Primary Sources 1. PRONI D671/M/8/40 – Working maps of the Kilwarlin Estate 1803 2. PRONI VAL/1/A/3/14 – Field Map c.1834 3. PRONI OS/6/3/14/1 – First Edition OS Map 1834 4. PRONI OS/6/3/14/2 – Second Edition OS Map 1858 5. PRONI OS/6/3/14/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1902-1903 6. PRONI OS/6/3/14/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1919-1920 7. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/45A-C – Griffith’s Valuation 1856-64 8. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/16 A – Annual Revisions 1863-1879 9. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/16 B – Annual Revisions 1880-1888 10. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/16 C – Annual Revisions 1889-1905 11. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/16 D – Annual Revisions 1906-1914 12. PRONI VAL/12/B/20/5D – Annual Revisions 1915-1929 13. ‘Belfast Telegraph’,17 May 1979, p.26 14. ‘Belfast Telegraph’, 4 June 1980, p.18 15. ‘Belfast Telegraph’, 7 December 1981, p.8 16. 'Belfast Telegraph', 2 June 2012 [https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/historic-ulster-country-house-rises-from-ashes-28756296.html accessed 4 June 2020.] Secondary Sources 1. Hobart, B. R., ‘The village of Hillsborough Co. Down: A short architectural and historical description’ (Unpublished illustrated book c. 1950s). 2. Rankin, K., ‘The linen houses of the Lagan Valley’ Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation, 2002.

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation H-. Alterations detracting from building J. Setting K. Group value

Historic Interest

V. Authorship X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Large detached two-storey stucco-fronted country house, built c.1800, refurbished c.1845 to the designs of Charles Lanyon. Retaining its fine italianate style and proportions, the house remained vacant for a period before 1987-88 and was subject to a devastating fire c. 1900, resulting in the loss of most internal fabric and some external fabric. Despite the development of the orignal outbuildings into private housing, the building still retains some of its orignal mature landscape setting and its principal former entrance gates with gate lodge on Hillsborough Road (HB19/04/002B), also by Lanyon. The building, with its historical connections to the Hill family and Hugh Moore, the former Justice of Peace of County Down, make it an important contribution to the heritage of Lisburn.

General Comments

Please note this record has been renumbered it was peviously HB19/04/002

Date of Survey

27 July 2010