Sheepbridge House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Symmetrical three-storey (over basement) late 18thC house set in mature grounds. Abutting left gable is a mid-late 19thC ballroom and to rear is a yard with outbuildings.

1. Main house

Pitched artificial slate roof with rendered chimneystack to each gable end; the right one is slightly larger than the left one. Rendered and corbelled eaves course supports half round plastic rainwater goods, with a metal downpipe on left side of facade.

Principal elevation faces N. Walls are cement wet dashed with a smooth rendered basecourse, rendered stepped quoins to each front corner but not to ground floor left (as ballroom abuts here) and smooth rendered platband at second floor cill level. The façade is symmetrical and is seven openings wide. The central opening at ground floor contains the main entrance. Semicircular headed doorway has a cement rendered surround and three granite steps. Reproduction door has six raised and fielded panels with a timber framed spoked fanlight over.

The remaining openings on façade are all windows. All are exposed box sliding sashes with plain rendered architraves, without cills or horns. Windows diminish in height with each floor: ground floor ones are 9/6 sashes, first floor ones are 6/6 sashes and those to second floor are 6/3 sashes. All retain their original crown glass, some with attractive flaws such as bulging, rippling and bull-eyes. It is said that one window pane is engraved ‘S G’ (after Samuel Gordon the house builder).

Left gable is abutted to ground floor by the single-storey ballroom extension (now a garage). The remaining exposed gable is cement dashed and blank. Ballroom extension has hipped natural slate roof with cast-iron rainwater goods. Walls are smooth cement rendered and lined with stepped quoins to left corner of front (N) wall only. Set to the left side of façade is a large 6/6 sliding sash window (exposed box, without horns) with granite cill. To its right is a large modern garage opening. Left (E) gable and rear (S) elevation of ballroom are both blank.

Rear (S) elevation of main house is much altered. Exposed brick eaves course and walls are modern dashed cement render. Its left half is abutted by a two-storey double pile rear return (see later). The remaining right half of the rear elevation is as follows. Modern glazed timber door at the extreme left end, to its right is a small 1/1 sash window. To the right end is a 6/6 sliding sash window. At first floor, roughly centre of this wall, there are two small 1/1 sash windows. Second floor is blank. No cills to any of the windows.

Rear return is double pile with its pair of gables abutting the main house. Both roofs are pitched and artificial slated with their ridges at eaves level of main house. Both have smooth cement rendered walls, corbelled eaves courses and plastic rainwater goods. The gable of the left pile has a rendered chimney. The left cheek of the left pile is flush with the right gable of the main house. It has two 1/1 sliding sash windows to each floor. End gables of the return are abutted by a later single storey lean-to; gables above are blank. The right (yard facing) cheek has two 1/1 sash windows to each floor.

Lean-to on gables of rear return has a monopitched natural slate roof. Its walls are smooth lined cement rendered. Its yard facing (S) elevation has a t+g door set to the left of centre and a steel framed casement window to its right. The left (W) gable of the lean-to abuts the outbuilding enclosing the W side of the yard (see later). The right (E) gable of lean-to has a modern door and window.

The right gable of the house is smooth rendered with an advanced chimneybreast to centre. Set to the right of the chimneybreast there a window on each floor (that to ground floor is not aligned). The ground and first floor windows are 1/1 sashes window with horns, second floor window is a modern single paned fixed light.

There is a small domestic yard to rear right of the house. It has a small modern lean-to on its S wall and a doorway through to the original farmyard.

2. Farmyard buildings

The farmyard to rear is enclosed to N by the house, to S by a stable block and to W by a two-storey derelict outbuilding. The E side of the yard is enclosed by a large modern farm building (of no interest).

The stable block is aligned W-E. It is two storey with a pitched corrugated asbestos roof and painted coursed rubble walls. Half-round asbestos gutters. Its N elevation fronts the yard. It has seven doors, of which five are half-doors. To first floor there are six window openings (of which one is a loading door). Its end gables and rear elevation are all blank.

The outbuilding to W side has a pitched natural slate roof with granite skews. Walls are random brought to courses and harled. The front (E) elevation (to yard) has a doorway just left of centre, and to its right is a slightly lower semi-elliptical brick archway with datestone over. Its incised letters read “SG/ 1757”. To right of the archway the outbuilding is abutted by the lean-to on the main house. The extreme left end of the elevation formerly had an external stone staircase rising from ground floor left to first floor (now gone). The first floor has a timber loading-door (at head of where external stairs terminated). Remainder of first floor has four equally spaced window openings, all with brick trim.

The S gable of the lean-to has a brick dressed pigeon coup in apex and an infilled door opening to centre of first floor. Its SW corner supports an archway to/from driveway (see later).

The rear (W) elevation of the outbuilding is six window openings wide to first floor (three now infilled). Set to right of centre on ground floor is a 4x2 metal-framed window.

The right (N) gable has two windows to ground floor; that to the left is a plain single paned window and that to right is the remains of a 6/6 sash window (bottom sash gone). The centre of first floor is an infilled window opening.

Archway to farmyard is of rubble stone and has an embattled parapet. It has a brick dressed semicircular-head and it contains a pair of original wrought-iron gates.

Historical information

The datestone at the rear (which may not be in its original position) attests to construction work by one Samuel Gordon, a linen draper, in 1757. According to the Archaeological Survey, the house itself is probably of around this date. Cited as 'Sheepbridge House' on the 1834 OS 6" map.

The 1836 Valuation book notes its occupant as William Gordon. Its dimensions are given as 52ft x 22ft x 26ft, with a 20ft x 26ft x 16ft return - these measurements correspond with the main house and double-pile return. Two defunct water mills, both originally bleach mills dating from the mid 1700s but now greatly altered, are associated. The house dimensions given in the 1862 Valuation book are broadly similar, but with the addition of a 24ft x 21ft x one-storey return and a 21ft x 9ft x two storey return. The former dimensions probably relate to the ballroom which is therefore of mid 19th century date; the latter probably relate to one of the outbuildings. The house is noted in the Valuation as being a "very old bad house expensive to keep".

John Gordon of Sheepbridge, occupant in the mid 19thC was a keen sportsman, whose stud comprised many successful racehorses, the most notable of which was ‘Barkston’ after whom the local residence Barkston House is named.

The ground floor plan in ‘Archaeology of County Down’ shows two staircases at ground floor (rear one now gone at ground floor). The HMMB first survey slide shows the building to have had three chimneys, rather than just two. The third was large (like the right chimney) and was set on the ridge between the second and third windows from the left. Photographs in the Architectural Archive show the rear elevation of the house to have two small window openings to second floor centre and that the wall over the rear return was slate-hung. The HMBB first survey card states that the original roof was natural slate and the walls were harled and whitened.

Evidence from the building: the larger (and now missing) third chimney, and the location of the staircase opposite the window to right of front door, might suggest that the house may have originally been five openings wide with original front door set to right of the present one. However, there is no archaeological evidence to support this.

Primary sources:
1. Date stone on outbuilding.
2. OS 6" map, 1834, Co Down sheet 46 (PRONI OS 6/3/46/1).
3. First Valuation, 1836 (PRONI VAL 1B/389).
4. OS 6" map, 1860, Co Down sheet 46 (PRONI OS 6/3/46/2).
5. Second Valuation, 1862 (PRONI VAL 2B/3/69C, p.162).
6. Two photographs (post WW2) in architectural archive EHS, 5-33 Hill Street Belfast.
7. HMBB first survey card dated 13/02/1970.

Secondary sources:
1. M. Jope (ed), 1966, An Archaeological Survey of Co Down, p.386-87 (Belfast: HMSO).
2. E.R.R. Green, 1963, The Industrial Archaeology of Co Down, p.33 (Belfast: HMSO).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A substantial mid 18th C house built for Samuel Gordon, a local linen draper. Although altered, this house, along with its ballroom and attractive farmyard, retains its external scale and reflects the prosperity of this area of Co. Down at that time.