Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB17/01/023 B

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

Townland:
Moyallan

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Survey 2:
B1

Date of Listing:
05/12/1979 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Outbuildings

Former Use
Outbuildings

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 5069

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Owner Category

Private

Exterior Description And Setting

Stable yard to Moyallon House (HB17/15/023A) comprising a U-shaped range of two-storey roughcast rendered outbuildings arranged around a central courtyard, pre-dating 1830 and located to the south side of Moyallon House. Coach-house forms the main block to south; east wing is abutted by a single-storey former motor-house; west wing is abutted to south by a two-storey former dairy; to west is a detached two-storey former servant’s block (described separately). Pitched and hipped natural slate roofs with blue/black angled ridge tiles and brick chimneystacks; corrugated tin roof to single-storey former motor house to east. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods on projecting eaves. Walling is roughcast render; all openings with smooth surrounds and keyblock to entrances. Windows are mainly 3/3 timber-framed sliding sash to first floor and 6/6 timber-framed sash with horns to ground floor, all in smooth surrounds with projecting granite sills (except to former dairy). U-shaped and facing north, arranged around a gravelled courtyard. To centre of south block is pedimented former coach-house with oculus to apex; three recessed windows to first floor (replacement uPVC to left and right and 3/6 to centre). Two segmental-headed carriage-arch entries to ground floor, each containing timber-sheeted gates with painted strap hinges. Left and right bays each have timber-sheeted doors surmounted by timber fanlight, with window over at first floor and window to left and right respectively. South elevation of has a window and timber-sheeted entrance to first floor right; ground floor with two windows to left and timber-sheeted door with four-pane transom light at right. East and west wings (stable-blocks) each have two window openings to first floor (with louvered vents at west wing) flanking a central timber-sheeted opening; ground floor with timber-sheeted entrance door surmounted by fanlight to left and right respectively and two windows. East wing is abutted to north by the single-storey former motor house (later), having large timber-sheeted doors to centre, 2/2 timber-framed window at right and replacement uPVC window at left. West block is abutted by the two-storey former dairy. South elevation of dairy has four narrow openings at first floor and a timber-sheeted entrance to centre. Ground floor has a window opening and timber-sheeted door to left; 1/1 window and wider timber-sheeted door with five-paned transom light to right. West gable is blank. The two-storey former servant’s block to west is rectangular on plan with a half-hipped natural slate roof having yellow brick chimneystack to north gable. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on projecting timber eaves. Windows are replacement uPVC (sympathetically styled). The principal elevation faces east and is five windows wide to first floor. To ground floor centre and left are two projecting porches under lean-to roof, each opening to south with a modern four-panelled timber door with sidelight, and uPVC window to east elevation. The south gable has a window to left of centre at ground floor. The west elevation has five windows to first floor; abutted at ground floor right by a slated lean-to opening to south with two modern timber doors. The north gable is abutted by single-storey gardener’s house. Setting: Situated to the south of Moyallon House (HB17/01/023A), gravelled central courtyard faces the south elevation; accessed to east by a set of roughcast rendered square gate piers and original cast-iron gates. Service yard to dairy at south and west. Surrounded by mature trees. Roof: Natural slate Walling: Roughcast render Windows: Timber-framed sash RWG: Cast-iron

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

The outbuildings to the south of Moyallon House are largely present on the first edition OS map of 1834 but may predate this map by some years, the site of the present house dating back to the late eighteenth century. (Rankin; Butler) The buildings have been remodelled over the years but their form is much as originally planned, a ‘play room’ and a motor house being the only two additions to the group, the former added in the late nineteenth century and the latter around the turn of the twentieth. Valuation records of the 1930s designate the buildings in the courtyard as, working clockwise from the east, a motor house, stable, a former coach house turned motor house with rooms over, a stable and loft over with dairy to the rear, servants quarters with lavatories to the rear and a play room. 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) In the early 1990s, buildings to the west of the courtyard, described as a wash house and carriage house were developed into two self-contained dwellings, called 1 and 2 ‘The Courtyard’. The architect was William C Callaghan of Portadown, who also designed a conversion in the south wing of the main house. (HB file) The stables provide a base every year for draught horses coming to compete in the Mullahead Ploughing Event which happens annually on the Richardson acres running down to the Bann River. (Chapman) 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 H-. Alterations detracting from building I. Quality and survival of Interior J. Setting K. Group value

Historic Interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A group of Georgian two-storey roughcast rendered outbuildings arranged in a U-shape around a central courtyard, pre-dating 1830 and located to the south side of Moyallon House (HB17/01/023A). The majority of detailing is intact and the original character, both externally and internally, survives. Of significant interest in their own right as an example of a Georgian stable yard, the outbuildings are also important in the context of the group (HB17/15/023A-D) and make a significant contribution to the historic interest and character of the site.

General Comments

Date of Survey

25 July 2011