Gate Lodge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A Picturesque one-and-a-half-storey two-bay gate lodge with attached gate screen, built c.1863 and attributed to Thomas Jackson & Sons, located on the west side of Moyallen Road, at the east entrance to Moyallon House (HB17/01/023A). L-shaped on plan (extended to rear).

Pitched natural slate roofs with single-lap slates to south pitch; scalloped to dormer; roll top ridge tiles. Central pale yellow brick chimneystack with three terracotta pots. Half-round cast iron rainwater goods and plain bargeboards to gables and dormers. Walling is basalt rubble laid to courses to south elevation, otherwise ruled-and-lined rendered; principal elevation (east) has stucco quoins and moulded stucco plinth. Original tripartite cast-iron lattice framed windows to ground floor, principal elevation (internal secondary glazing); otherwise uPVC casement replacements. Principal windows are detailed with ornate classical stucco surrounds; those to attic level have semi-circular heads with fleur-de-lys detail inset with fan moulding; sills are moulded with corbels. Plain long-and-short stucco architraves to secondary elevations.

Principal elevation faces east. Left bay is gabled and defined by quoins at either side, with window to each floor. The right bay has dummy entrance comprising timber door incised with decorative detailing, with four-centered arched overlight, all in a stucco long-and-short architrave with pendant hood mould and key block. To its right is a ground floor window surmounted by a wall-head dormer. Ground floor windows iron lattice type.

South elevation is centrally abutted by a later lean-to glazed timber porch addition. To its right is a bipartite window; to its left a former four-centred arched brick-dressed yard opening, now infilled with a uPVC window over rendered apron panel. Original brick-dressed door opening remains within the porch, and above it brick quoins define the extent of the original elevation; the extended section is of uncoursed basalt rubble.

Rear elevation is plainly detailed with a window to each floor at return, and to left bay (dormer to upper floor). There is a modern rear door to north cheek of return, surmounted by a modern metal canopy.

North gable is abutted by the east wall of the walled garden, which also functions as the estate boundary wall. It is lit by a window to attic level only.

Gate Screen:
The gate screen abuts the south eastern corner of the lodge, and comprises ashlar sandstone piers with moulded caps topped with ball finials; gates are modern timber. To right of the carriage gates is a gabled wicket opening in dressed stone with trefoil detail to apex, inset with an ornate Tudorbethan-style latticework wicket gate.

Setting:
The gate lodge is set at the eastern entrance to the Moyallon House estate, at the end of a sweeping tree-lined gravel drive. The east entrance opens onto a pavement slightly beneath the level of the road, which has been raised slightly. To rear is a concrete yard occupying the east end of the walled garden and enclosed by a tall rubble stone wall to all sides. The yard is accessed from the drive by a pair of cast-iron gates on plain square piers with pyramidal caps.

Roof:
Natural slate
Walling: Rendered and basalt rubble
Windows: Iron lattice and uPVC
RWG: Cast iron

Historical information

The present gate lodge forms part of the estate of Moyallon House, a linen mansion built by descendants of the Quaker family who introduced the linen trade to this stretch of the Bann River and one of a number of substantial houses that demonstrate the prosperity that linen production generated at its height.

The ‘Lodge’, dating from 1863 is first shown captioned on the third edition of 1901-2 and is shown as a rectangular building beside the main entrance driveway to Moyallon House. A further gate lodge, uncaptioned, is present at the rear of the house.

The present gate house was in progress in 1863 at the time the main house was remodelled and a further gatehouse was added to the valuation in 1871. The improvements were made by John Grubb Richardson who had inherited Moyallon House through his wife, a Wakefield. The gatehouse is said to have been designed by Thomas Jackson and Son, Jackson being an architect much employed by Quaker families in the area. (Dean; Rankin)

The gate lodge is not separately listed in valuation records until the 1930s when it appears in the First General Revaluation at a value of £6.15s. It has been described; The accommodation comprises three bedrooms, a parlour, kitchen, scullery and WC and it is occupied by James Ferris on a service tenancy. The house is two-storey and has a single-storey scullery and yard to one side.

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)

The south wing of the house is now called ‘The Lodge’ and in the 1990s was developed into three self-contained flats by architect William C Callaghan of Portadown. As part of this development, a verandah of wood and glass that is shown on the first survey photograph was taken down and a single-storey flat-roofed extension built in its stead. (HB file)

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
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A one-and-a-half storey gate lodge with attached gate screen, built c.1863 in a picturesque blend of cottage ornée and classical styles, and attributed to Thomas Jackson & Sons. The lodge is located at the east entrance to Moyallon House, and contributes to the completeness and historic interest of the estate group (HB17/01/023A-D). With gate screen of dressed stone enlivened by an unusual wicket gate, the lodge is an important feature in the context of the historic environment of the area, which is defined by its associations with the linen trade.

General comments

Please note this record has been renumbered it was previously recorded as HB17/01/040