Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB17/01/058

Address :
The Grange Moyallen Portadown Co Armagh BT63 5JZ

Townland:
Moyallen

---

Survey 2:
B1

Date of Listing:
29/10/2013 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

---

OS Map No:
201/9

IG Ref:
J0475 5047

---

Owner Category

Private

Exterior Description And Setting

An asymmetrical three-bay two-storey with attic detached house with large coach-house, built c.1800 with alterations c.1900 and c.1960, and located east of the Stramore Road. L-shaped plan with sun room (c.1960) to south, original full-height return and two-storey lean-to extension (c.1900) to rear. Pitched natural slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and overhanging eaves board; roughcast rendered chimneystacks with capped pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on overhanging eaves. Walling is painted roughcast render with continuous sill course to ground floor west. Windows are a variety of timber sliding sash; those to main elevation are 3/6 tripartite with dividing pilasters (unless otherwise stated); canted bay and oriel window to north. The principal elevation faces west and is three openings wide with a central entrance bay and projecting gabled bay at right. Gabled bay has a tripartite 3/6 window to first and ground floor. Six-panelled raised-and-fielded entrance door with brass door furniture to centre flanked by Tuscan columns with entasis and surmounted by a frieze having triglyphs; with spider-web fanlight, all set in an alcove ashlar sandstone doorcase. 3/6 window with side-lights to first floor of entrance bay. Left bay has 3/6 window to first floor and a lean-to box bay to ground floor containing a 3/6 tripartite window. The north elevation has two 2/2 windows to attic. To first floor left is the oriel box window with bracketed base and overhanging eaves, containing three six-paned timber casement windows opening on a hinge and with four decorative timber brackets on corbels. To first floor right is a 3/6 window. Ground floor has a 2/4 window to left and two 3/6 windows to right. The east (rear) elevation is abutted at left by the full-height return first, then addition, having three 1/1 windows to first floor and two 2/2 windows to ground floor; at ground floor left is a timber half-panelled door. The full-height return to right is abutted at ground floor by a slated lean-to extension, having a 3/6 window to left and a multi-paned window to right. The first floor is blank bar a chimney flue. Box bay and a 4/4 window at north elevation; south elevation has a 2/2 window to first floor, a paired 2/2 window to ground floor left and a modern timber-sheeted door at right. The south elevation has a 2/2 window to left and right at attic; a 6/6 window to first floor left and a 3/6 window to first floor right. Ground floor is abutted at right by the modern lean-to sunroom (c.1960). A uPVC Door and window screen has been added to the S elevation sunroom at ground floor. Setting Situated in a rural location on a large mature site south of Stramore House (HB17/01/037A), accessed via a modern farm-gate and gravelled driveway. To east is a large roughcast rendered slated coach-house. The west elevation has three almost-regularly spaced multi-paned timber windows to first floor, with a working clock-face to centre. Three multi-paned windows to left at ground floor, with a modern timber sheeted door to right of centre. The north gable was concealed. The east elevation has been altered to accommodate five sets of timber-sheeted garage doors on rollers; two multi-paned windows to left of centre. The south gable has two eight-paned timber casement windows to first floor; a uPVC Door and window screen has been added to the south elevation sunroom at ground floor. Rubble stone boundary wall with buttresses abuts the north gable. Rear garden enclosed by a roughcast rendered wall with rubble stone pier to north. Modern swimming pool to rear of house and working orchard to east. Garden to south is enclosed by hedgerow and accessed to three sides by wrought-iron gates. Bounded to road to west by mature hedgerow. Roof: Natural slate Walling: Render Windows: Timber RWG: Cast-iron

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

‘The Grange’ is of Georgian appearance and the presence within the house of an iron grate inscribed ‘GR III’ may support a construction date during the period of his reign. A double-height extension to the front facade is not shown on the second edition OS map of 1858 and valuation records suggest that this is late Victorian in origin. Historic photographs of the house show a veranda wrapping around the building from the entrance door to the north facade (now gone) and it is likely that this was added at the same time as the front extension, forming part of improvements made by Thomas Wakefield Richardson in the early 1890s. The house is likely to have been a Christy/Wakefield property before it was inherited by the Richardsons in the mid-nineteenth century, and therefore formed part of the early development of the Moyallon area as a centre of the linen industry, but original sources to confirm this are lacking. The house is shown on the first edition OS map of 1834 captioned ‘Annaville’ and is on an L-shaped plan, much as today, with a linear range of outbuildings to the rear. The second edition of 1858 shows little change, other than the depiction of a formal garden to the south of the property. On the third edition the house is captioned ‘Moyallan Grange’, changing its name in the 1930s to ‘The Grange’ by which name it is known today. Annaville is listed in the Townland Valuation of 1828-40 as the home of Mr Matthew Fox and is a house and offices valued at £19.17s. The house measures 43x30.6x23 feet and an ‘outshot’ to the rear 19x21x22. Also present are a long two-storey outbuildings with lofts, a two-storey coach house and a number of single storey outbuildings. The two-storey outbuilding/coachhouse is still present on the site. Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) lists the occupier initially as Reverend Orr who leases the house from James Geo H Fox (in chancery). During the period that Griffith’s Valuation was being compiled, the house was taken over by John Grubb Richardson of Moyallon House who let the house to a series of tenants, the first of whom was David Mercier. Richardson had inherited properties in the Moyallon area on his marriage to Jane Marion Wakefield in 1853. (Rankin) Annaville is set in a plot of over 9 acres and is valued initially at £18, later raised to £20. The house and outbuildings have not altered and retain much the same dimensions as in the earlier valuation. The valuer comments, however, that the offices are ‘not in good repair’ and they are given a lower quality mark than the house itself. David Mercier was the proprietor of a flour mill in Moyallon shown to the south of the house on the 1858 OS map edition, captioned ‘Moyallon Flour Mills’. Subsequent tenants were William F Mercier (1872) and in 1891 Mrs Hogg who won a prize for her cow at the Banbridge annual show of that year (Belfast Newsletter). By 1894 the house was home to J G Richardson’s son, Thomas W Richardson and in the same year the valuation was raised to £29, the valuer noting that the house had been ‘improved’. The improvements included the addition of a double-height extension and a veranda to the front façade. In 1901 Thomas Wakefield Richardson, describing himself as a ‘landowner and manufacturer’ was living in the house with his wife and two servants, a cook and a housemaid. The house had 14 rooms and was designated first class. At the time of the census in 1911 T W Richardson was temporarily absent from home but the household is noted to have expanded somewhat with a staff of five servants resident at ‘Moyallan Grange’, including a cook, lady’s maid, housemaid, kitchen maid and parlour maid. Rankin suggests that T W Richardson and his wife Hilda lived firstly at the Grange, but when Richardson’s widowed mother died in 1909 and the family home was empty, they moved into Moyallon House. (Rankin) At the time of the First General Revaluation in the early 1930s the occupier was Captain James A Johnston JP of the linen dynasty associated with Johnston, Allen & Co, Lurgan. Johnston leased the property from T W Richardson’s widow Hilda. The valuation was raised to £58 and lowered to £50 following an appeal. In 1934 the accommodation comprised, 4 bedrooms, 2 dressing rooms, 3 attics, 3 receptions, a bathroom and separate WC with hot and cold water, a kitchen, 3 pantries and a scullery. The house had its own electricity plant and piped water. A plan and dimensions are given showing that in the 1930s the veranda was still present. Captain Johnston died in 1936 and the house was taken over by his widow, Margaret, who was then followed by Samuel Noel Cochrane in 1945 before the house returned again to a Richardson, Alexander R W (n.d.). Alexander Reginald Wakefield Richardson (1902-84) was born at Old Drumlyn House in Portadown, the son of John Grubb Richardson’s daughter Ethel and R H Stephens Richardson. (Rankin) According to Quaker sources, he and his wife, Marianne, went to live at The Grange after losing three of their four children, two in the same week to typhoid fever. (Chapman) Further alterations were made to the house c1960 including the addition of a sun room to the south. Several local sources maintain that the house was slept in by John Wesley. These include a members of the Quaker Society, both local and provincial. This would suggest that the house was constructed sometime around the 1780s; however there are no written sources to support this. The house continues in use as a dwelling. References: Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/3/26/1 First Edition OS Map 1834 2. PRONI OS/6/3/26/2 Second Edition OS map 1858 3. PRONI OS/6/3/26/3 Third Edition OS Map 1901-2 4. PRONI OS/6/3/26/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1920-21 5. PRONI VAL/1/B/350 Townland Valuation (1828-40) 6. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/48A Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) 7. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/25A-H Annual Revisions (1864-1930) 8. PRONI VAL/3/C/4/2 First General Revaluation (1936-57) 9. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/3/M/5 First General Revaluation (1933-57) 10. Belfast Newsletter Friday, July 24, 1891 Secondary Sources 1. Information supplied by Ross Chapman of Bessbrook Quaker Meeting and Friends’ Historical Committee 2. Rankin, K “The Linen Houses of the Bann Valley, The story of their families” Belfast, Ulster Historical Foundation, 2007 3. Current owner

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation D. Plan Form H+. Alterations enhancing the building I. Quality and survival of Interior J. Setting

Historic Interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Moyallen Grange is a three-bay two-storey-with-attic detached house with large coach-house, built c.1800 with alterations c.1900 and c.1960, and located on a large mature site east of the Stramore Road. The alterations demonstrate the development of the house, illustrating a change in taste and in the use of internal spaces at the turn of the 20th century. The setting is largely intact and the coach-house adds to the character and interest of the site. It is a good example of the type of small Georgian house with later additions and alterations.

General Comments

Date of Survey

06 October 2011