Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB17/02/018

Address :
Banford House 56 Banbridge Road Gilford Craigavon Co Down BT63 6DJ

Townland:
Knocknagore

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Survey 2:
B+

Date of Listing:
17/05/1976 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:
201/15

IG Ref:
J0810 4905

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Owner Category

Private

Exterior Description And Setting

A symmetrical three-bay, three-storey over semi-basement mid-sized Georgian country house, built c.1780, located on an elevated site to north of Tullylish settlement, overlooking the former bleachworks. Rectangular plan with full-height rear extension, built c.1910; abutted at either side by a nineteenth and early twentieth-century conservatory. Hipped natural slate roof with angled ridge and hip tiles, two rendered chimneystacks with multiple pots to ridge. Painted stone eaves cornice with ogee cast iron rainwater goods. Walling is roughcast throughout with sandstone quoins (top quoin reeded) and platband between basement and piano nobile. Windows are generally timber sliding sash, with simple horns, some having original crown glazing; 3/6 to basement, 6/6 to piano nobile and first floor, 3/3 to second floor. Those to principal façade are set within moulded stone architraves with projecting sandstone sills. Those to basement and secondary elevations have slightly projecting rendered reveals. All doors with exception of principal entrance door are modern timber. Symmetrical principal elevation faces south, and is five windows wide, graded in height, over a semi-basement. Piano nobile having central wide segmental arched entrance accessed by a flight of eight sweeping bull-nosed sandstone steps, enclosed at either side by ornate cast-iron balustrading. Doorcase in painted stone, with Ionic pilasters on plinth blocks flanking Edwardian stained-and-leaded glass sidelights and painted timber seven-panelled door with Edwardian brass letterbox. Neoclassical frieze in Adam style, reeded to centre with lion’s head medallions flanking carved swags to either side. Large spiderweb fanlight and moulded archivolt over. First floor has a central tripartite window (4/4, 6/6, 4/4) with pilastered mullions, all set within a segmental arched sandstone surround having moulded keyblocked archivolt, plain tympanum, and foliated pilasters. The basement extends to left side, forming a room two-windows wide. West elevation is abutted at piano nobile by an Edwardian timber conservatory with leaded pavilion roof, partially supported over the basement at right, and on cast iron columns with decorative capitals to left; ground floor windows have been converted to internal access doors. Upper floors are lit by a window to either side of central blind window, all with architraves. Basement has two windows to left side, located beneath the conservatory. The projecting right side of the basement is blank. The conservatory has overhanging sheeted eaves on profiled brackets; full multi-paned glazing retaining original glass over horizontally-sheeted timber plinth, with lattice paned transom glazing. Double-leaf access doors to west side, addressed by a set of metal steps. The rear elevation is abutted at left side by a full-height flat-roofed extension; exposed right bay has a window to each floor, vertically aligned. Extension has irregular fenestration, including round-arched windows to north and east, and is abutted by a glazed lean-to, supported over basement coal-sheds at west. A set of concrete steps leads to the basement channel at right side, having timber doors to right bay and extension. The east elevation is three windows wide to upper floors, extended by an extension at right and abutted by a conservatory (built c.1880) at left. Two windows to piano nobile, that to left now converted to provide access to the conservatory, that to right converted to a glazed timber door accessed by a set of modern metal steps. The conservatory is timber framed over a rendered plinth, having arcaded round arched glazing and additional raised lantern to glazed roof. Setting: The house occupies a prominent elevated site with views over the surrounding countryside and Tullylish bleachworks to south. Mature grounds with gravel forecourt, and former bleach green to south enclosed by sweeping beech avenues to east and west. Lawn to side and rear; bounded by mature trees and hedges; former stableyard now in separate ownership and redeveloped. Immediately to north-east is a former walled kitchen garden, with round arched timber sheeted entrance gate set within a rubble stone and brick folly tower. Site accessed by modern electronic metal gates on modern cement rendered banded piers with urns. Roof: Natural slate Walling: Roughcast Windows: Timber RWG: Cast iron

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

Banford (also known as Bannford) House was built c.1780 by Thomas Nicholson, son of Quaker John Nicholson (and brother of General John Nicholson) who had set up what is thought to have been the earliest bleach yard on the Bann with money granted by the Linen Board between 1727 and 1729. (Rankin) The Post-Chaise companion describes it as an ’elegant new house’. The house overlooks what was once an extensive area of bleach green, the mill being sited further to the south on a mill race within a loop of the Bann River. The linen business and the house passed to Thomas’s son Robert Jaffrey Nicholson after his death and in 1795 linen weaving was carried on at the works, but was discontinued in 1860. The house and mill were sold to Benjamin Haughton, the proprietor of Benjamin Haughton & Co, c.1815. (Rankin; Bassett’s Directory) By 1834 Haughton was also the owner of a flour mill downriver to the west and OS Memoirs give a full description of his five water wheels. Three of the wheels ran washing and beetling machinery, and two, in the flour mill, ran grinding stones. All of the wheels had been built or rebuilt in 1812 which may have been the date that Haughton acquired the properties. (OS Memoirs) ‘Bannford’ is shown on the first edition OS map of 1833 as a rectangular mansion house with return and a substantial stable courtyard some distance to the rear. The Townland Valuation lists the occupier as Benjamin Hutton [sic] and values the house and outbuildings at £36.11s. Dimensions are given for the house, return and basement and a number of outbuildings are listed including a coach house, stables and lofts, a cow house with lofts a turf house and potato store, a pig house and a steward’s house. Benjamin Haughton died in 1862 and Thomas Haughton took over the house and business, bringing in Daniel Jaffe as a business partner in 1863, from which time the bleaching business was known as Banford Bleach Works (Bassett’s Directory, Rankin) In Griffith’s Valuation the house is listed as the property of Thomas Haughton in fee and valued at £55. Four 2-storey outbuildings are listed and three single-storey. Workmen’s houses and gatehouses are also listed but these are not captioned on the second edition OS map. Daniel Jaffe’s interest in the business was bought by John Edgar in 1883 and Thomas Haughton died in 1888, leaving his property to linen merchants Thomas Sinton, who unfortunately predeceased him and Hugh Watson. (Will of Thomas Haughton died 1st November 1888) An advertisement of November 1888 lists the contents of the house which were sold at auction after Haughton’s death. They include a ‘Broadwood’ grand piano and walnut and mahogany furniture together with numerous vehicles; ‘brougham, landau, wagonnette, phaeton &c’ The property was subsequently in the ownership of the Sintons for some years but was let out to tenants, being advertised numerous times in the Belfast Newsletter between 1889 and 1894. A tenant is recorded in Annual Revisions, W G W Flynn. However, in 1900, Frederick Buckby Sinton, fifth son of Thomas Sinton moved into the property. F B Sinton, linen manufacturer, who was 30 at the time of the 1901 census is resident with his wife and baby daughters and the couple have a staff of five, a professional nurse from England, a nurse from Wicklow and three further domestic servants. In 1909 his wife died of tuberculosis and he is listed as a widower in the 1911 census, living with five children and a staff comprising two governesses, one English, one German, a parlourmaid from Kilkenny, a nurse, a housemaid and a cook. A young relative of his wife’s is living at the house and working as an apprentice bleacher. In 1911 Fred Sinton added a complete wing at the back of the house to designs by Henry W E Hobart, causing an increase in the valuation to £40. (description of additions) Sinton married again in 1912, his wife’ sister and had three more children, making eight in all. Frederick Sinton died in 1943 and his wife Hanna Maria lived on in the house until 1968. The house has since had a number of owners. (Rankin) References: Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/3/26/1 First Edition OS Map (1833) 2. PRONI OS/6/3/26/2 Second Edition OS map (1860) 3. PRONI OS/6/3/26/3 Third Edition OS Map (1903-4) 4. PRONI OS/6/3/26/4 Fourth Edition OS Map (1903-20) 5. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/25A-D Annual Revisions (1864-1929) Secondary Sources: 1. Rankin, K "Linen Houses of the Bann Valley", 2007 2. Capper, B.P. “A Topographical Dictionary of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland” London: Sir Richard Phillips and Co, 1829 3. Electrical Journal, Volume 154, 1955 4. Seward, W W “Topographica Hibernica” Dublin, 1797 5. Belfast Newsletter, 17th February 1894 6. O’Hart, J “Irish Pedigrees: Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation” Dublin, 1892 7. Duffy’s Hibernia Magazine.

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

Historic Interest

V. Authorship X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Banford House is a three-bay three-storey over semi-basement mid-sized country house, built c.1780. It is one of several mid-sized houses in the district built on the success of the local linen industry and retains views over the former bleach green and chimney of Tullylish Bleachworks (IHR:0311600000) with which it was immediately associated. The house is a fine example of mid-Georgian architecture defined by graceful proportions and restrained Neoclassical ornament, here restricted to the fine original doorcase. Much original fabric and original features survive, including evidence of Edwardian remodelling. The house is of note as a fine example of a mid-sized Georgian residence representing the development of national architectural tastes and the success of local industry.

General Comments

Date of Survey

20 January 2012