Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB17/05/002

Address :
Huntly House 107 Huntly Road Drumnagally Banbridge County Down BT32 3BS

Townland:
Drumnagally

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Survey 2:
B+

Date of Listing:
25/10/1977 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:
220/4

IG Ref:
J1185 4694

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Owner Category

Private

Exterior Description And Setting

A symmetrical two-storey three-bay stucco house with tetrastyle Ionic portico, built c.1850 to designs by Thomas Jackson and located to the east side of Huntly Road north of Banbridge town centre. Rectangular-plan with two-storey return and stair-hall extension to rear; projecting porch to east; two-storey side wing to west. Hipped natural slate roof with leaded hips and ridges; rendered chimneystacks having moulded caps and tall terracotta pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on bracketed and modillion eaves with decorated fascias. Walling is ruled-and-lined painted render with ashlar granite plinth and raised quoins. Windows are 6/6 timber-framed sliding sash in moulded architraves with painted masonry sills; those to ground floor have a dentilled cornice hoods. North-facing and five openings wide at each floor; to ground-floor is a tetrastyle Ionic portico with pilaster responds flanking an eight-panelled timber door having bead muntin, brass door furniture, paved stone pedestal, surmounted by a transom light with glazing bars and flanked by sidelights. The east elevation is two windows wide to each floor. The south (rear) elevation is abutted at right by the two-storey return. To left is the stair-hall extension, having two 2/2 windows with stained-glass margin-panes (at different levels) to first floor and modern conservatory to ground floor (of no interest); further abutted at right by the two-storey side wing. The return has two windows to first floor south and is abutted at ground floor by a modern extension (of no interest). West elevation of house has four windows to first floor; window and modern double-leaf glazed timber doors in moulded surround to ground floor right; abutted to re-entrant angle by the modern conservatory. The east elevation is six windows wide to first floor; single-storey projecting porch opening to south to ground floor centre, having six-panelled timber door and transom light with 6/6 window to cheeks. The side wing has lower ridge level; it has four openings wide to north and south elevations; abutted at west by a single-storey boiler house. Setting Set on a large site to the east side of Huntly Road and enclosed by a variety of mature trees. Walled garden with formal hedges to west accessed to northwest via original cast-iron latch gate. Paved driveway to north leading to gravelled concourse; terraced lawn to front and rear. Garden features include steps and decorative balustrade to west and nineteenth-century sundial to rear garden. Entrance comprises original polygonal gate piers with caps supporting arrow-head gates and railing; carriage bollards to front. Roof: Natural slate Walling: Ruled-and-lined render Windows: Timber-framed sash RWG: Cast-iron

Architects

Jackson, Thomas

Historical Information

‘Huntly House’, dating from c1840, is one of many fine linen mansions that distinguish the Bann valley and embody the success and prosperity of Ulster’s linen heartland. The house was built by Hugh Dunbar, proprietor of the Dunbar McMaster spinning mill in Gilford and is thought to be the work of Thomas Jackson, an architect much favoured by the linen merchants of Banbridge district. The house is adjacent to the ford of the Bann where William III crossed the river on his way to the Boyne in 1690. (Rankin) A house, captioned ‘Huntly Glen’, is shown on the site on the first edition OS map of 1833, together with outbuildings forming a stable courtyard to the rear and, in a tree-lined field to the north of the house a ‘Thread Manufactory’. The second edition of 1860 shows that the house has been remodelled, gardens laid out before the house and a ‘gate lodge’ added to the entrance driveway. Map evidence and valuation records suggest that the new mansion and service wing were built at right angles to the older dwelling, replacing some of the outbuildings and incorporating the earlier house as a return. The house is still captioned ‘Huntly Glen’ in 1860 but in subsequent additions is known as ‘Huntly’. Hugh Dunbar is thought to be responsible for the building of the early Victorian mansion and gate lodge which are attributed to Thomas Jackson. Dean gives a description and photograph of the gate house which has since been demolished. (Dean) The earlier house on the site (now gone) is said to have dated from 1760 (HB file). Hugh Dunbar Esq is listed in the Townland Valuation (1828-40) as the occupier of the house, offices and thread factory valued at £44.8s. Dimensions are given for the earlier house, single storey return and separate thread factory as well as outbuildings such as a drying house and drying lofts, workshop and boiling house. Hugh Dunbar left Huntly Glen c1845 to build a new residence, Dunbarton House, in Gilford where he had established a spinning mill. (Rankin) Leases held by the present occupier indicate that the Dunbar family owned the house from at least 1785. (Banbridge Historical Journal; Green) Hugh Dunbar began spinning thread at Huntly in 1810 and this was the site of one of the earliest thread manufacturing concerns in the Banbridge district. Hugh Dunbar was the descendant of a linen family, his grandfather having leased the property at Huntly from the Whyte’s of Loughbrickland. Yarn was boiled, sorted and prepared on Dunbar’s own premises before being wound and woven into cloth by local hand-loom weavers, 1,700 of whom were employed in the neighbourhood. In 1834 the combined production of thread by Dunbar, William Stewart of Edenderry and Brice Smyth of Brookfield was 900,000 hanks, but the competition from mill-spun yarns, produced by the new wet-spinning process was such that Dunbar was compelled to start his own spinning mill or go out of business. Dunbar chose Gilford as the centre of his new enterprise and Dunbar and Thompson’s (later Dunbar McMaster & Co) spinning mill opened in 1839. Thread continued to be made at Huntly until 1843, shortly before Dunbar’s death. (Green; Logan; Rankin) Hugh Dunbar moved to Dunbarton House c1845, leaving his four sisters at Huntly. (Rankin) The Dunbar sisters were businesswomen in their own right and when Hugh died in 1847 his sisters Anne and then Jane took over his position in the partnership. In 1855, J W McMaster agreed to buy the lands, mills and machinery at Gilford from the Dunbar sisters for £35,000 and to buy out their share in the partnership but it wasn’t until 1865 that Jane assigned the family’s share in the business to McMaster. Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) lists the house as the property of Miss Anne Dunbar and it is revalued at £70. The valuer describes the house as plastered and stone finished with cut stone quoins and gives dimensions for the ‘new house’, ‘old house’ and a number of returns, outbuildings, a glass house and a gate house. The building is set in over 48 acres of land. When Anne Dunbar died, the house passed to her sisters Isabella and Jane. Isabella owned most of the Dunbar property in Drumnagally and died with a fortune of £70,000. With the death of Isabella in 1871 and Jane in 1874 the house finally passed out of the Dunbar family after a period of at least a hundred years. The Dunbar sisters left a considerable sum of money to the Unitarian church in Downshire Road Banbridge for the establishment of a school-house named the Dunbar Memorial School. The school was to be non-sectarian in character although under the control of the Unitarian minister and church committee. (Rankin; Banbridge Historical Journal). Jane Dunbar left Huntly in her will to her friend Mrs Anne Herron who is noted in valuation records as the occupier in 1874. However, Anne Herron almost immediately put the house up for sale at auction, an advertisement in the Belfast Newsletter stating, “The House is well built and planned, and is in every respect a first-class one. It contains four Reception-rooms, eight Bed-rooms, two Dressing-rooms, Lady’s and Housekeeper’s Pantries, WC and Servants’ Apartments &c &c. There is an excellent walled-in Garden, with Conservatory and Vinery. The Office-houses which are within a convenient distance of the House, are large and extensive. They comprise Coach-house, Stabling for eight horses, Harness-room, Cow-houses &c &c…Huntley Glen is situate within half a mile of the town of Banbridge, in a county celebrated for the beauty of its scenery. There is capital hunting in the immediate neighbourhood and good trout fishing in the River Bann, which forms the Eastern boundary of the Lands.” (Belfast Newsletter) John Morton bought the house in 1875 and appears in the 1901 census as a 64-year-old provision merchant living with his wife and adult daughter. The family have two domestic servants. John Morton died in 1902 and his lengthy will shows that he traded as J & J Morton and was a bacon curer, also selling provisions, seeds and oats. (Will of John Morton) The Morton family leased land on the Downshire estates from at least the 1750s. They were a family of numerous sons, many of whom emigrated, but John and his brother stayed in Banbridge and traded in Newry Street, J & J Morton eventually being taken over by Messrs Sinclair of Newry. Their younger brother Joseph Morton had his own ryegrass seed business which is still trading in agricultural supplies today. (Banbridge Chronicle; www.mortonseeds.com) John Morton’s widow Mary took over the house after his death in 1902 but had left by 1911 when it was taken over by D Wilson Smyth. David Wilson Smyth was the great-grandson of Brice Smyth of Brookfield and was for many years a Director of the family firm ‘Smyth’s Weaving Co Ltd’. Smyth also later became a Director of the Belfast Ropeworks Co Ltd and was involved with the Northern Ireland Transport Board and its replacement the Ulster Transport Authority, becoming Vice-Chairman in later life. He was a keen golfer and won the Irish Open Amateur Championship in 1921, but in 1922 the family moved to Belfast and Huntly House was again vacant. (Rankin; Smyths of the Bann) The house was bought in 1929 by Richard James Hale for £1800 and revalued after appeal at £39. A plan and dimensions are given which show old and new houses, the service wing to the west of the main house and single and double-storey stables. Richard James Hale was a horse breeder and dealer but his family traded in bacon, poultry and beef and a photograph has survived of their premises in Bridge Street dating from 1895. Hale’s traded on the slogan ‘bacon is the backbone of our business’. (Young and Quail) The First General Revaluation of 1933/4 lists the accommodation. Downstairs was a hall, two large receptions 18 feet by 24 feet and a smaller reception a cloakroom with lavatory and separate WC, a small kitchen, scullery, washhouse and servants WC, and a small outside larder. Upstairs were one large bedroom, two small bedrooms, and one maid’s bedroom in the wing with a bathroom. The house had electric light from its own plant and central heating. It was said to be ‘old fashioned’ but in ‘fairly good condition of repair’. The rear portion of the house, constituting the original 1760s dwelling, was let out to tenants and after the conversion of the workhouse into a hospital in 1932, it was used to house the former workhouse population for a time. (Magennis and Quinn; valuation records) In the later 1930s it became the home of W Haughton Crowe, head teacher of Banbridge Academy, who was very grateful to be ‘housed comfortably in the spacious older part of a divided Huntly House’ as accommodation was hard to come by in the depressed thirties. (Haughton Crowe) This earlier portion was valued at £40 but was demolished in the later years of the twentieth century. (HB file) The house was listed in 1977 and in the 1970s and 80s repairs were made to the roof and chimneys, including damp and dry rot treatment. In 1992 renovation took place to the gates, piers, railings and walling on the property boundary. In 2005 the remaining return was demolished and replaced with a large extension including a conservatory, all echoing the early Victorian design of the original. (HB file) References: Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/3/27/1 First Edition OS Map 1833 2. PRONI OS/6/3/27/2 Second Edition OS map 1860 3. PRONI OS/6/3/27/3 Third Edition OS Map 1903 4. PRONI OS/6/3/27/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1903-18 5. PRONI VAL/1/B/348B Townland Valuation (1828-40) 6. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/41 Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) 7. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/6A-H Annual Revisions (1864-1929) 8. PRONI VAL/12/F/4/1/1 Annual Revisions (1930-35) 9. PRONI VAL/12/A/3/7 Valuer’s notebook (1909) 10. PRONI VAL/3/C/4/1 First General Revaluation (1936-57) 11. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/3/E/5 First General Revaluation (1936-57) 12. PRONI Will of John Morton died 14th November 1902 13. 1901 census online 14. 1911 census online 15. Belfast Newsletter 29th April 1874 16. Banbridge Chronicle 30th October 1970 17. NIEA HB file Secondary Sources 1. Banbridge Historical Journal 2. Dean, J. A. K. “The Gate Lodges of Ulster: A Gazetteer.” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1994. 3. Green, E.R.R. “The Industrial Archaeology of County Down” Belfast: her majesty’s Stationery Office, 1963 4. Linn, Captain R “A History of Banbridge” (edited by W S Kerr) Banbridge Chronicle Press, 1935 5. McCandless, P “Smyths of the Bann” 6. Haughton Crowe, W “In Banbridge Town” Banbridge Chronicle, 1964 7. Magennis and Quinn “Banbridge Historic Trail” 1991 8. Rankin, K “The Linen Houses of the Bann Valley, The story of their families” Belfast, Ulster Historical Foundation, 2007 9. Young, A F and Quail, D “Old Gilford, Scarva, Loughbrickland and Lawrencetown” Stenlake Publishing, 2002 10. www.mortonseeds.com

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

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

Historic Interest

V. Authorship X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Huntly House is a two-storey three-bay detached stucco house, built c.1850 to designs by Thomas Jackson. Composed on a symmetrical plan around a tetrastyle Ionic porch in a style typical of the Victorian period. Good Victorian detailing survives including some fine examples of nineteenth-century plasterwork. The original entrance to north and a walled garden to west are also of interest. Its historic character and interest survive and it is a good example of the work of a prominent architect. Huntly House is representative of the success and prosperity of the linen industry in the area during the Victorian era.

General Comments

Date of Survey

16 January 2012