Lurgana House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A substantial two-storey Italianate-style villa on an asymmetrical plan in its own extensive grounds, built c.1857 onto a two-storey Georgian mill house, which in turn was built onto a single-storey original house of mid to late 18th century.

Located at the N end of Lurgana Road near its junction with Ballymoyer Road, approximately 1 mile SW of Whitecross, which is in turn approximately 8 miles NW of Newry.
Lurgana house is surrounded by mature trees and garden with a large, enclosed farmyard on S side with extensive rubblestone outbuildings that largely predate 1834-5.

The substantial two-storey block was built onto the N side of the two-storey Georgian mill house. The latter was constructed onto the N end of the partly-surviving single-storey original house to the South.

The mid-19th century two-storey block is faced in stucco and has three formal facades, all with wide eaves on large block modillions. Each façade is elaborately stuccoed with channelled rustication and vermiculated quoins on ground floor and plain quoins to the upper floor. Natural slate roof with stuccoed chimney stacks.

Front elevation (N)
Entrance elevation has three bays. The advanced section on right side has a large tripartite window on ground floor level and paired sliding sash windows in elaborate lugged surrounds with segmental arched heads on first floor. A tall, flat-roofed porch projects from the re-entrant angle with a recessed doorcase with brackets under a squat segmental fanlight. Tall arched window opening in E side of porch.
Left side has similar tripartite windows on the ground floor and paired sliding sash windows in elaborate lugged surrounds on first floor level.
Several stuccoed chimneys.

Side elevation (E)
Main two-storey block on right side has 4 window openings aligned on both ground and first floor levels, all with 4/4 timber sliding sash windows. Ground floor windows have moulded surrounds, and first floor have elaborate lugged surrounds with segmental arched heads. Stuccoed chimney to centre of ridge.
Two-storey hipped roof block on left side is set back from main block, ruled and lined rendered, plain eaves. Round arched window opening with multipane window at quarter-landing level, and smaller window opening to right at first floor level with a 3/3 sliding sash window. Rear (S) face of block has a window opening at half-landing level. Tall, stuccoed chimney at valley.
Lower Georgian block on left side has a single window opening with multi-pane window at ground floor level. No window openings to first floor level. Two chimneys on ridge, one on left side is brick and one on right is rendered.
Single storey section of original house extant on left side with pitched roof and no openings apparent.
Two-storey range of rendered outbuildings abuts S side of single-storey section.

Rear Elevation (S)
The rear elevation of the main two-storey block is partially abutted by the lower Georgian wing on left side. The right side is abutted by the stairwell return which has one window opening at half landing level on the S side.
The rear façade of the Georgian block is abutted by the single storey block, which in turn is abutted by the row of taller outbuildings.

Side elevation (W) (described using Brett’s photograph in Buildings of County Armagh, p196)
Two window openings on left side with long 4/4 timber sliding sash windows with moulded surrounds. Two shorter window openings aligned above with 4/4 timber sliding sash windows with segmental arched heads and elaborate lugged surrounds.
Advanced section to right side with single-storey flat-roofed bay window to ground floor level with 6/6 timber sliding sash window to centre and 2/2 timber sliding sash to splays. Stepped cornicing to bay. Paired narrow 4/4 timber sliding sash windows above bay, with segmental arched heads and elaborate lugged surrounds.
Lower two-storey plain Georgian section to right side with sliding sash windows on ground floor level, aligned with same above. Two chimneys on ridge, one on right side is brick and one on left is rendered.
Single storey original section to right side with single window opening with tripartite multi-pane window to centre with segmental arched head.

Setting:
Entrance to NE side of house from Lurgana Road through a pair of modest square-plan stone gate posts with small pyramidal capping stones and wrought iron gates. Low stone walling to boundary with Lurgana Road.
The outbuildings are of various sizes and appear mostly of rubblestone construction, some rendered facades and infill brick with a mixture of natural slate roofs and corrugated iron roofs.

Entrance to E side of house and Northern ranges of outbuildings from Lurgana Road to S, through squared rubblestone piers.

Entrance (now disused) to farmyard and Southern ranges of outbuildings on Lurgana Road to S, broken wrought iron gates.

Materials – House:
Walls – stucco
Roof – natural slate
Windows – timber, sliding sash
Rainwater goods – unknown

Materials – outbuildings:
Walls – mixture of rubblestone, render and brick
Roof – natural slate and corrugated iron
Windows – unknown
Rainwater goods – unknown

Historical information

Lurgana House is a substantial multi-period house dating from the mid-19th century with outbuildings that largely predate the first edition OS map of 1834-5. The complex has retained part of a pre-existing dwelling house, a single-storey bay of an original house (possibly mid to late 18th century in date) and a later two-storey Georgian wing, as a return to the Victorian dwelling.

The house and outbuildings have undergone several phases of development. There has been a remarkable level of survival of outbuildings and parts of the original dwelling. The site of Lurgana House is shown on Rocque’s 1760 map of County Armagh with two structures and a garden depicted in an area captioned ‘Luriganought’. Although buildings are shown in a somewhat stylised way on Rocque’s map, the bounded garden area and building orientations correspond recognisably to the walled garden and building layout shown on the first edition OS map of 1834-5. Lurgana House is also shown, although it is not named, in Taylor & Skinner’s volume of maps of the roads of Ireland (surveyed 1777 and corrected 1783, p.286), as one of two buildings (the other is Ballymoyer House) roughly ¾ mile apart that are captioned ‘Sinnot Esqr’, on a route from Newtownhamilton to Newry.

The history of Lurgana House is closely entwined with the history of its neighbour, Ballymoyer House (previously known as ‘Ballymoyer Lodge’), and the family that built it, the Synnots. Their ancestor was Colonel David Synnot, of Anglo-Norman Catholic descent, who was Governor of Wexford when it was captured by Cromwell in 1649. Synnot was betrayed by a subordinate and is thought to have drowned while attempting to flee. His estates were subsequently confiscated, and his son Tobias or Timothy, who had been rescued from the siege of Wexford as a baby, was sent to the north of Ireland and raised as a Protestant. Timothy’s grandson Richard Synnot (d.1727) was a registrar of the Diocese of Armagh and secured a lease of the eight townlands of Ballymoyer or Ballymyre parish, including Lurgana townland, from the archbishop in 1693. Richard’s grandson Sir Walter Synnot (1742-1821), a magistrate, High Sheriff of County Armagh (1783, knighted same year) and a ‘power magnate’ of the area became resident in the parish in 1778, when he built Ballymoyer Lodge (later known as Ballymoyer or Ballymyre House), a short distance to the west of Lurgana House.

It is possible that Lurgana House was first constructed as a house for the Synnots’ agent, prior to the Synnots’ residence in the parish, i.e. in the mid 18th century. Lurgana House, which was formerly known as ‘Ballymoyer Cottage’, or simply ‘Ballymoyer’, is known to have been occupied by the Synnots’ land agent from at least the late 18th century.

The first known residents of Lurgana House are the Reid family, notably John Reid, who was Sir Walter Synnot’s land agent during the 1780s. During the period leading up to the United Irish Rebellion, Sir Walter Synnot was Captain of the Ballymoyer and Tullyvallen Volunteers. When Synnot became Lieutenant Colonel of the Southern Batallion of the Armagh Regiment of Volunteers in the 1780s, his agent, John Reid took charge of the Ballymoyer Volunteers and by 1786 he was being styled ‘Captain Reid’. In 1797, at the time of the United Irish rebellion, Captain John Reid of ‘Ballymoyer’ and his neighbour Sir Walter Synnot, wrote to Dublin Castle alarmed at the disturbed state of the district, some of which letters have survived. Synnot describes walling up the lower windows of his house because it was ‘very difficult to defend as our windows to the floor are all level with the lawn, and a volley fired in must kill every person in the room’. It can be assumed that his neighbour at Lurgana also had to take precautions against potential attacks.
In a survey of Ireland by William Shaw Mason in 1816, there is a reference to Lurgana (then known as Ballymoyer cottage) as a ‘very neat lodge’ leased by William Reid Esq, a local magistrate, who is described as a ‘most spirited improver [who] has of late planted a number of trees around his farm, which in a few years cannot fail of adding greatly to the general effect of the landscape’. William Reid was a resident magistrate at the time of the murder of George McFarland near Newtownhamilton during a period of agrarian disturbances. Some of Reid’s correspondence on this matter has survived and is discussed in McMahon and McKeown’s 1979 paper on Agrarian disturbances around Crossmaglen.

The first edition OS map of 1834-5, which depicts the house, uncaptioned, shows a range of buildings to the north of the site that were later demolished. However, most of the remaining outbuildings have survived to the present day. The Townland Valuation of 1837 records Lurgana as a long single-storey house of dimensions 71x21x12 feet, with a double-storey addition (35.6x20.6x16 feet). The latter dimensions correspond roughly to the two storey Georgian wing that survives on the site today, which appears to have been a later addition to the original single-storey dwelling house. Brett identifies the single-storey block as the one remaining bay of the original dwelling house (the remainder of the single-storey dwelling house appears to have been replaced by a two-storey outbuilding after 1834-5 – see plan, buildings 7 and 11). The quality mark given to the main house indicates that it was slated and built of stone and/or brick, was not new, and was ‘slightly decayed’, but in good repair, while the quality mark given to the two-storey block suggests it was of a later date. Two further, single-storey, additions to the house are also recorded, which most likely refer to the buildings to the north of the site that were lost in the later rebuild, as well as several, mostly slated, outbuildings including a hen house, stables, barn, harness room, engine house and turf house (the latter was 84.6 feet in length and thatched). William Reid Esqr was resident and is also noted to be the proprietor of the nearby corn mill and kiln and three associated thatched dwellings for the miller, kilnman and ploughman. Lurgana House was of a slightly lower valuation than the neighbouring Ballymoyer House, but the mill and outbuildings meant that the valuation of Reid’s holding was higher.

Shortly after the death of Sir Walter Synnot’s son and heir, Marcus Synnot (1771-1855), both Ballymoyer House and Lurgana House were remodelled by the Synnot family. At Lurgana House, a range of buildings to the north of the site was removed and a substantial Italianate villa on an asymmetrical plan was added. Part of the existing dwelling house, the Georgian two-storey block and the single-storey block, remained as a return to the new house. Ballymoyer House also had a Victorian villa built onto the northeast façade, and the original Georgian dwelling house was similarly retained as a return to the new house. The two new houses, Ballymoyer (Ballymyre) House and Lurgana House, are first shown, captioned, on the second edition OS map of 1860 and the map also shows outbuilding 26 as a new addition to the site. It has been suggested that the architect for the two new houses, may have been William Joseph Barre who designed the rebuild of the neighbouring parish church in 1863-65. However, there is no concrete evidence to support this, and Brett assesses the architecture of Lurgana as not representative of Barre’s work.

The house and lands at Lurgana were leased by Marcus (1816-1874), heir and resident at Ballymoyer House, to his brother Parker George Synnot (1824-1901) who is recorded as resident in Lurgana House at the time of Griffith’s Valuation in the 1860s. Parker George Synnot was the tenant of Lurgana House which was valued at £55 and also of the nearby corn mill and kiln and flax mill, valued at £50. Dimensions are given for the new house and existing return and outbuildings. Several family members lived in and around the area. The family seat, Ballymoyer House, was valued at £100 and another nearby house occupied by an older brother (Mark Seton Synnot), Ballintate House, was valued at £45. A sister of Marcus and Parker, Mary Marcia Synnot (1814-1869), also resided at Lurgana for at least part of her life, until her death in 1869. Her will gives fascinating details of her possessions and hints at her relationships with the wider Synnot family.

Parker George Synnot, was a magistrate, Deputy Lieutenant of County Armagh and a prominent member of the Orange Order, having been first Grand Treasurer of the County Armagh Grand Orange Lodge, holding that office from c1850 to 1872. He was Deputy Grand Master from 1872 to 1886 and Grand Master of Armagh Lodge from 1886 until his death in 1901. Consequently, Lurgana was on occasion the scene of a ‘field’ following Battle of the Boyne commemorations.

Parker Synnot gave fiery speeches on occasion in opposition to Home Rule in the 1880s and 90s and it may have been his political prominence which led to an arson incident that happened at his flax mills. The Belfast Newsletter reported in 1887 that Parker Synnot’s corn mill and flax scutching mill had been subject to a malicious burning and he was awarded £950 in compensation. The corn mill was restored to working order subsequently, but the flax scutching mill disappears from valuation records at this time.
Lurgana House is recorded in the census of 1901. Parker Synnot having died a few days previously, Georgina Thorpe Synnot, his English widow, was living in the house with her two sons and a daughter, and four servants, a parlour maid, housemaid, cook and kitchen maid. The house had ten rooms and was designated first class. The outbuilding return records 25 outbuildings.

Following Parker Synnot’s death in 1901, Lurgana House was offered for sale at public auction. The house was described as a ‘first-class residence with all necessary out-offices, also corn and threshing mills (water power), good gardens, turf bog etc’. The house was then purchased by one of Parker Synnot’s former tenants, John King, a substantial farmer who lived within the townland of Lurgana (the 1901 census records him resident in a house of 10 rooms) and was an associate of Synnot’s, perhaps his agent, having been the executor of his will.

In the 1911 census return, John King was resident at Lurgana with eight of his nine surviving children. His close link to the Synnot family is demonstrated by the fact that one of his sons had been named George Synnot King. The Kings ran a slightly more modest establishment than the Synnots with only one domestic servant.

The 1906 large scale map shows a much extended or rebuilt outbuilding 14 and outbuilding 16 as additions to the site, and also shows a porch on the eastern elevation of the old single-storey house, presumably the original entrance to the dwelling.
Lurgana House was again recorded by the Valuation Office in 1933, the accommodation comprising, seven bedrooms and a WC upstairs with four receptions, a kitchen and pantry on the ground floor. There was also a cellar, wash house and stores. The valuer rated it as a ‘very good house…in good position’. However, the accommodation was thought to be ‘excessive’. Dimensions are given for the house and outbuildings. The dwelling house was of rubble masonry faced in stucco and roofing materials included slate, lead and glass. The outbuildings were generally of rubble masonry and slated, with some brick, wood and felt, and corrugated iron used.

The Ballymoyer estate was presented to the National Trust in 1937 and Ballymoyer House was demolished by the remaining Synnot family c1938, while Lurgana House continued in the ownership of the King family. The 1979 large scale map shows that outbuildings 13 and possibly 22 were demolished after 1955 and replaced with a large barn. Otherwise, and except where stated above, the majority of the larger outbuildings on the site appear to be pre-1834-5 in origin and are generally in a relatively good state of preservation although outbuilding 26 is now a ruin.

Lurgana House remains in the ownership of the King family today (2023) and is one of the few surviving structures from the Synnots’ once extensive estates. The house has been recognised as architecturally important in two recent publications, the Pevsner guide to South Ulster, which describes it as an ‘attractive Italianate house [of] two storeys with wide eaves on chunky modillions and three fronts, all elaborately stuccoed with channelling and vermiculated quoins on the ground floor’. The house also appears in Charles Brett’s Buildings of South Armagh. Brett notes that the original windows survive and that the interior has very tall rooms, ‘the big windows make them light and airy’. His overall assessment is that Lurgana is ‘a considerably more interesting and attractive house than appears from a glimpse of it through the trees from the road’.

References:

Primary Sources:

1. Mason, William Shaw (1816) A Statistical Account or Parochial Survey of Ireland, Volume II Dublin: Hibernia Press Office
2. PRONI OS/6/2/21/1 First edition Six Inch OS map (1834-5)
3. Day, A and McWilliams, P (eds) Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland: Vol 1 Parishes of County Armagh 1835-8 Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, Queen’s University, 1990
4. PRONI VAL/1A/2/21Valuation map Barony of Upper Fews (1837)
5. PRONI VAL/1B/239 Townland Valuation, Barony Upper Fews, Parish Ballymyre (1837)
6. PRONI OS/6/2/21/2 Second edition Six Inch OS map (1860)
7. PRONI VAL/2/B/2/13 Griffith’s Valuation Parish of Ballymyre (1862)
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/15/2A-D Annual Revisions ED Ballymyre (1865-1929)
9. PRONI Will of Mary Marcia Synnot, died 15th August 1869
10. Londonderry Sentinel, 18th July 1872
11. South Wales Echo, 21st September 1885
12. Flag of Ireland, 26th December 1885
13. Belfast Newsletter 20th December 1887
14. Armagh Standard 18th July 1890
15. PRONI Will of Parker George Synnot, died 29th March 1901
16. Northern Whig, 5th April 1901
17. Newry Reporter 24th September 1901
18. Weekly Irish Times, 2nd December 1905; Belfast Newsletter 5th December 1905
19. PRONI OS/6/2/21/3 Third edition Six Inch OS map (1906)
20. PRONI VAL/12/A/3/84 Annual Revisions Valuers’ Notebook (1906)
21. PRONI OS/6/2/21/4 Fourth edition Six Inch OS map (1955)
22. PRONI VAL/3/C/2/12 Rural District of Newry Vol 1, ED Belleek (1936-7)
23. PRONI VAL/3/D/2/6/C/6 First NI General Revaluation, Valuers’ Binder, ED Belleek (1933-57)
24. Census of Ireland, 1901 and 1911, online

Secondary Sources:

25. Brett, C E B (1999) Buildings of County Armagh. Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society
26. Burke, Sir Bernard (1871) A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland. London: Harrison, Pall Mall
27. Muiri, Reamonn (1982) ‘The Killing of Thomas Birch, United Irishman’ Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society, 1982, Vol 10, No 2, pp.267-319
28. Mulligan, Kevin V (2013) Pevsner Architectural Guide – The Buildings of Ireland – South Ulster. New Haven and London: Yale University Press
29. Paterson, T G F (1942) ‘The County Armagh Volunteers of 1778-1793: List of Companies’ Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Third Series, Vol 5, pp31-61
30. Paterson, T G F (1943) ‘The County Armagh Volunteers of 1778-1793: List of Companies’ Ulster Journal of Archaeology, Third Series, Vol 6, pp69-105
31. McMahon, K and McKeown, T (1979) ‘Agrarian disturbances around Crossmaglen. 1835-1855, Part I’ Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society, Vol 9, No 2, pp.302-332

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H+. Alterations enhancing the building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A substantial two-storey multi-period house containig Italianate-style dwelling on an asymmetrical plan in its own extensive, landscaped grounds, built c.1857 onto a two-storey Georgian mill house, which in turn was built onto a partly surviving single-storey original house of mid to late 18th century. The house is located at the N end of Lurgana Road near its junction with Ballymoyer Road, approximately 1 mile SW of Whitecross, Co Armagh. The complex has a farmyard on S side with extensive rubblestone outbuildings that largely predate 1834-5. The history of Lurgana House is closely entwined with the family that built it, the Synnots, this being one of the few surviving structures from their once extensive estates. The house is significant in the area, with the building complex displaying the evolution and narrative of the house over time, illustrating its historic development as a palimpsest of the agrarian deveopment in the area. In particular, the Victorian block retains much historic detailing to the exterior, with wide eaves on large block modillions, channelled rustication, vermiculated quoins and lugged window surrounds. The survival of detail of the earlier wings add to the importance of the overall complex. Lurgana House has been recognised as architecturally important in two publications, the Pevsner guide to 'South Ulster', and Charles Brett’s 'Buildings of County Armagh'. It is a good example of a large country house and is of local interest.