Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB17/01/023 A

Address :
Moyallon House 136 Stramore Road Moyallen Portadown CRAIGAVON BT63 5JZ

Townland:
Moyallan

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Survey 2:
B+

Date of Listing:
25/10/1977 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Country House

Former Use
Country House

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
Yes

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
201/9

IG Ref:
J0477 5074

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Owner Category

Private

Exterior Description And Setting

A symmetrical two-storey-over-semi- basement three-bay detached house with attic, built 1795 and remodelled c.1860 to designs by John Grubb Richardson; located to the north side of Stramore Road, north of Gilford town centre. Rectangular on plan with two-storey side wing (c.1860) to south and single-storey canted bay to north. Hipped natural slate roof with rendered chimneystacks having moulded caps and tall decorative pots. Walling is band rusticated to ground floor and painted smooth render to first floor with raised quoins and plat-band between floors and under eaves. Moulded eaves cornice is surmounted by parapet, raised and containing two attic windows to north and south. Windows are 2/2 timber sliding sash in segmental-arched lugged surrounds to first floor; tripartite timber sliding sash in lugged surrounds with panelled aprons to ground floor; all with projecting painted sills. Three barrel dormers to roof. Tripartite single-storey canted bay with moulded architraves to north. The principal elevation faces east and is raised on a stepped plinth with metal grille over basement; three openings wide at each floor. Central doorcase at ground floor has raised-and-fielded eight-panel timber door with brass door furniture in an engaged portico. Portico has paired Ionic columns and swag-moulding to fascia with triglyphs and circular motifs to frieze; surmounted by large timber fanlight with looped glazing. The south elevation has two diminutive windows to attic and is abutted by L-shaped two-storey side wing (c.1860), similarly styled as the main house with cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on bracketed eaves. East elevation has projecting bay at right, with a window to ground and first floor. Left bay is three windows wide at first floor; ground floor has window to right and is abutted at left by a flat-roof extension two windows wide. South elevation of side wing has two barrel dormers to attic; first floor has, at right, a group of three round-arched 1/1 windows in moulded surrounds with projecting sills and corbels under (central window with keyblock). Tripartite segmental-arched window to ground floor right with dividing pilasters surmounted by plain entablature. Basement has half-panelled and glazed timber door accessed via a set of steps with smooth rendered parapet walls. At left is a round-headed geometric window at mid-level in moulded surround with keyblock and projecting sill with corbels under; four-panelled timber door to ground floor in moulded architrave. The west elevation of the south wing has a bowed bay to left of centre with tripartite window at first and ground floor; window at each floor of flanking bays. The west elevation has central pedimented breakfront, two windows wide to each floor and flanked to either side by a window at ground and first floor. Basement has two windows at right and a window and four-panelled timber door to left. Cast-iron walkway at ground floor above basement, supported on cast iron columns, accessed by a set of steps to centre and stone steps north end with cast iron balustrade. The north elevation has two diminutive windows to attic and two windows to first floor. Ground floor window opening at left is altered and partially filled; timber casement window to upper half. Canted bay to right; metal grille over basement. Setting: Set on extensive mature grounds to the north side of Stramore Road, surrounded by mature trees and accessed via gravelled avenue to south. Concrete steps to north with modern handrail leading down to rear garden. To south is a single-storey gabled gardener’s house abutting the east wall of the side wing, with bargeboards and finial to gables. Paved courtyard with stable yard and associated outbuildings (HB17/01/023B) to south partially enclosed by tall roughcast rendered walls. Roof: Natural slate roof Walling: Smooth render Windows: Timber RWG: Cast-iron

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

Moyallon House is a linen mansion built in 1794 and still occupied today by descendants of the Quaker linen dynasty that first built on this site in the late eighteenth century. The house was radically remodelled in 1863 by John Grubb Richardson, but may incorporate earlier fabric. (Valuation records; Rankin) Moyallon townland was settled in 1675 by the Christy family from Scotland, who are thought to have introduced the linen trade into the area. A group of closely related Quakers settled along the Bann between Moyallon and Lawrencetown in subsequent years, building mansion houses that reflected the increasing success of the linen manufacture and trade in which they were engaged. (Rankin) A house is known to have existed on the site in 1781 when the nearby Friends Meeting House was built. The meeting house trust deed of 1781 included the gift by Thomas Christy of a right of way ‘in the right line from his gates to the said meeting house’, which continues to provide access to this day. (Butler) A house on the present site was built in 1794 by Thomas Christy Wakefield, (1772-1861) descendant of the original Christy family and of Joseph Wakefield, owner of Moyallon bleach green. Thomas Christy Wakefield had been living in another house nearby, also called Moyallon House, which had been destroyed by fire. The present dwelling is captioned ‘Moyallan’ [sic] on the first edition OS map of 1834 which shows the main house and a service courtyard to the south that has survived. The present house is listed in the Townland Valuation (1826-40) as the property of Mr Thomas Wakefield and comprises a mansion house with cellars valued at £40.7s and having dimensions 49x38x27 and a number of single and two-storey outbuildings including a turf house, potato house, stables and lofts, a coach house, cow house and privy. On the second edition (1858) the house is designated ‘Moyallan Ho[use]’ and a ‘Thrashing Machine’ is also captioned within its curtilage. Griffith’s Valuation states that the ownership of the house has now passed to John Grubb Richardson who owns the house in fee. In August 1863 the valuation of the buildings was raised from £55 to £100 because the dwelling house was being ‘rebuilt, enlarged and new wings added to it, also neat offices and gate lodges in progress.’ The third edition OS map of 1901-2 shows the new house with gate lodges and additional outbuildings. The architect of the remodelling is unknown but the Quaker Thomas Jackson was well-known to the Richardsons having designed meeting houses in Belfast and Lisburn and is thought by Dean to be responsible for the gatehouses at Moyallon. (Dean) John Grubb Richardson was a descendant of the Richardsons of Lisnagarvey, some of the earliest plantation settlers in the area, recorded there in 1610. Many generations of the family were involved in the making and marketing of linen, initially in Glenmore, Lambeg and eventually in Liverpool, Philadelphia, New York, and the model village of Bessbrook. John Grubb Richardson was one of seven sons of James Nicholson Richardson, the founder of the company J.N. Richardson, Sons & Owden Ltd, a successful bleaching and warehousing firm. John Grubb Richardson purchased from Lord Charlemont the Mount Caulfield estate in Armagh, where his cousins the Nicholsons had already established a spinning mill. Richardson built a model village at Bessbrook from 1845, initially around spinning mills and eventually weaving factories with houses, a school, churches and a shop but no access to alcohol in accordance with the temperance practised by Quakers. In 1853 Richardson married Jane Marion Wakefield of Moyallon House and the property eventually passed to the couple on the death of her father. (Rankin) In 1863 Richardson inherited an estate in County Tyrone and it is the sale of this estate which appears to have allowed him both to become the sole owner of Bessbrook works and village and to extend his new dwelling at Moyallon. A further gate house and a gas works (deleted 1910) were added to the estate in 1871 increasing the valuation once more to £140. John Grubb Richardson died in 1890 leaving his widow in residence at Moyallon House until her death in 1909. According to her will, Jane Richardson had two stepchildren and seven children of her own, one of whom, Thomas Wakefield Richardson took over the house on his mother’s death. T W Richardson is listed in the 1901 census, his mother being away from home at the time. He is present in the house with his English wife, a cook and a Quaker housemaid. When the gasworks was demolished in 1910, the valuation was decreased to £125. In 1911 Richardson and his wife were away from home but their staff had expanded to include a cook, lady’s maid, housemaid, kitchen maid and parlourmaid. The house passed to his widow, Hilda, after TW Wakefield’s death and, as the couple had no children, in 1945 the house became the property of their nephew Alexander Reginald Wakefield Richardson. (Rankin; valuation records) In the First General Revaluation of 1933/4 the house was revalued at £118. The accommodation in the house at this time is listed. On the ground floor were a dining room, drawing room, library, morning room, flower room, cloakroom, billiards room, bedroom, butler’s pantry, servants’ hall, scullery, two kitchens, servants bedroom, two cloakrooms, bootrooms, three pantries and a larder. On the first floor were seven bedrooms, a sitting room, a bathroom with hot and cold water and a WC. On the second floor were six servants’ bedrooms, a bathroom and a boxroom. The outbuildings comprised a glass-walled museum (now gone), a laundry, drying-room and loft with three servants’ bedrooms, three steam-heated greenhouses, stabling, four motor houses (one with two rooms over), stores and agricultural buildings. The valuer comments that the house has its own electric light and the grounds include two grass tennis courts and a croquet lawn. Alexander Richardson and his wife Marianne had four children at Moyallon but in the 1940s two of their children died of typhoid and a further child died a few years later. Because of the associations of the house with this terrible event, Alexander, Marianne and their son Hugh moved into a nearby Richardson property ‘The Grange’. The furniture in the then vacant Moyallon House was auctioned off and the premises was leased to the Department of Health and Social Services as a residential special care school and is so captioned on the OS map dating from the 1960s/70s. A fine marble fireplace was removed at this period and fitted in Derrymore House, Bessbrook, a property which had been donated by the Richardsons to the National Trust. In the 1970s the house was occupied by a Mrs Mathers who ran it as a guest house, following which it was vacant for some years. In the early 1980s the house was renovated as a family home. (Chapman). There has been a remarkable continuity of ownership from the Christy’s who first built the house in 1794. (Rankin) The south wing of the house is now called ‘The Lodge’ and in the 1990s was developed into three self-contained flats by architect William C Callaghan of Portadown. As part of this development, a verandah of wood and glass that is shown on the first survey photograph was taken down and a single-storey flat-roofed extension built in its stead. (HB file) 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 Griffiths Valuation (1861) 7. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/25A-G Annual Revisions (1864-1929) 8. 1901 census online 9. 1911 census online Secondary Sources 1. Butler, D.M. “The Quaker Meeting Houses of Ireland” Dublin: Irish Friends Historical Committee, 2004 2. Chapman, Ross (Friends’ Historical Committee) 3. Dean, J. A. K. “The Gate Lodges of Ulster: A Gazetteer.” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1994. 4. Rankin, K “The Linen Houses of the Bann Valley, The story of their families” Belfast, Ulster Historical Foundation, 2007

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation D. Plan Form I. Quality and survival of Interior J. Setting K. Group value

Historic Interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Moyallon House is a two-storey-over-semi-basement three-bay detached house with attic, built 1795 and remodelled c.1860 to designs by John Grubb Richardson; situated in extensive mature grounds. Composed around a symmetrical plan in a style typical of the Victorian period, architectural detailing from the mid-nineteenth century remodelling is largely intact. Elements of the original house also survive. The setting adds to the historic interest of the house, with the stable yard (HB17/01/023B) and gate lodges (HB17/01/023C & D). A good example of this type of developed house, reflecting the history of the occupants. Moyallon House represents the legacy of the Linen industry in the area, and the success and prosperity it generated in the district during the Victorian era.

General Comments

This record has been renumbered it was previously recorded as HB17/01/023

Date of Survey

25 July 2011