Lodge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A vacant single-storey sandstone gate lodge in Scots Baronial style, built c.1870 to designs by William Spence, and located to the north side of the main entrance to Elmfield (HB17/01/034A), to the east side of Moyallan Road, north of Gilford. Rectangular plan with projecting gabled porch to south.

Pitched natural slate roof with angled ridge tiles. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on bracketed eaves with cast-iron hopper and downpipes to south elevation; remainder has cast-iron half-round rainwater goods on drive-in brackets. Walling is ashlar sandstone on a plinth. Windows are 1/1 timber sliding sash (without glazing) in smooth surrounds with projecting stone sills.

All elevations are severely overgrown and not entirely visible.

The principal elevation faces south. To right of centre is the projecting crow-stepped gable porch with ball finial, containing a plain timber-sheeted door (not fixed) with overlight (no glazing) in moulded surround; round-arched slender window to left and right cheeks. Entrance door is surmounted by a stone shield with carved relief of the Dickson family crest; a clasped hand holding a dagger. Porch is flanked by two windows at left and one at right.

The east elevation has two windows.

The north (rear) elevation has two windows at far left.

The west elevation has two evenly-spaced windows.

Setting:
Situated to the north side of main entrance at Elmfield, to the east side of Moyallan Road. Severely overgrown, the lodge is now barely visible from the road or the main entrance.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Ashlar sandstone
Windows: Timber (without glazing)
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

The current building is one of two lodges to ‘Elmfield’, this single-storey structure serving the front entrance and another rear lodge at the head of a driveway leading to the stable courtyard at the rear. The front lodge and the main house are thought to be the work of William Spence (Dean) and both date from c.1870 (Valuation Records).

A ‘gate lodge’ is shown, captioned, on the site on the second edition OS map of 1858. However, the plan form of this building does not correspond to the present structure and it appears likely that the lodge was rebuilt at the time of Elmfield’s second remodelling c.1870. The third edition of 1901-2 shows the rebuilt structure. The ‘front gate lodge’ is not separately listed in valuation records until the First General Revaluation of 1933/4 when it is noted to be the home of James Mitchell, an employee of Henry Uprichard, who held the house rent free. The house was in good repair and comprised a kitchen, scullery and two bedrooms, with a basement. The valuation was raised from £1.10s to £4.5s in the revaluation. An addition was made to the house in 1954 and the valuation was raised to £7. The occupier was then Albert Williamson.

‘Elmfield’ appears, captioned, on the first edition OS map of 1834 as an L-shaped structure with a row of outbuildings to the rear. The second edition of 1858 shows that the house has been substantially remodelled. Two ‘Gate Lodges’ are captioned, one at the head of a driveway leading to the service courtyard and the other at the head of the main entrance driveway leading to the western façade of the house which was then the front entrance. Outbuildings are shown forming a stable courtyard to the side of the house and the gardens have been planted with trees. An ornamental pond and formal gardens form part of the newly-laid-out demesne. By the third edition of 1901-2, further remodelling of the house had taken place, including the addition of square and circular towers, and the main entrance is now on the northern façade.

In the late eighteenth century the lands known as Elmfield belonged to the Christy family, Quakers who are thought to have introduced the linen industry into this area in the late seventeenth century. (Rankin) In 1806 James Christy of Stramore granted the Elmfield property to his relative and business partner in the firm of Christy and Dawson, William Dawson. An earlier house existed on the property at this stage, and it is this earlier structure that is shown on the first edition OS map of 1834 and is listed in the Townland Valuation at a valuation of £17.16s. The two-storey house measuring 38.6 feet by 21 feet had a cellar and a number of outbuildings including a coach house, potato house and barn. One of the outbuildings was thatched and the back wall of the barn was of mud. The occupier of the house is named as William Dawson. Map and field evidence suggest that the Georgian house and outbuildings have been partially incorporated into the present house and stable courtyard. The head rent to the property was bought in 1832 by James Uprichard of Bannvale and the Uprichard family were later to become resident at the house. (Rankin) Newspaper evidence shows that the next occupier, James Dickson, was resident at the house from at least 1851. Remodelling of the house took place at around this time and its altered plan form is shown on the second edition OS map of 1858, together with gate lodges serving front and rear entrances.

James Dickson was a partner in the linen firm Dunbar, Dickson and Co, whose factory in Gilford was largely responsible for the town’s growth and prosperity in the second half of the nineteenth century. According to Rankin, Dickson purchased the house and lands in 1861, although newspaper evidence shows that he had already been resident for at least ten years. Elmfield was substantially remodelled before the second edition of 1858, the evidence from valuation records and newspaper sources suggests that the building present on the site today largely dates from c1870. Stone-cutters were working at the site in 1867 and valuation records state that a new house and outbuildings had been completed by 1872. The new building was valued at £110 and was built at a cost of £4,000 by contractor William Barclay. (Belfast Newsletter; Valuation Records)

Dean suggests that the architect of Elmfield was William Spence, who had also designed Gilford Castle for James’ brother Benjamin Dickson. Unfortunately the building of Elmfield co-incided with a downturn in the linen trade and the Dickson family were eventually forced to sell it. Houghton Dickson was the occupier in 1881 but by 1883 the house was vacant and the valuer believed it was ‘likely to be let’. In fact it was purchased in 1884 by Forster Green, tea and coffee merchant, for his daughter Emily and her husband, Henry Albert Uprichard of the local Quaker linen dynasty. Elmfield was the main residence for Henry Albert Uprichard and his family but it is unclear whether the family were living here or at nearby Bannvale, another Uprichard property, at the time of the 1901 census. The census records Henry and his second wife Beatrice together with children from his first and second marriages, six in all. Also living with the family was Beatrice’s mother from Waterford and four female servants. Henry Albert Uprichard died in November 1901 and left Elmfield and its estate of 260 acres together with the ‘plate, pictures, horses, carriages and furniture’ to his eldest son William Forster Uprichard. William Forster was also left an equal share in the Springvale Bleach Works, a successful enterprise which gave employment to around 130 workers at the turn into the twentieth century. The 1911 census shows that William Uprichard, a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers) was living with his wife and two-year-old son, Rutledge who was being raised as an Episcopalian, his mother’s denomination. The family had a staff of five, a parlourmaid, housemaid, cook, nurse and a 15-year-old ‘milk boy’ from County Armagh.

The Uprichards lived in considerable style at Elmfield, and horses, dogs and hunting were an important recreation. William Forster Uprichard was an accomplished amateur jockey, both he and subsequently his son Rutledge winning the title of Irish Amateur Champion. William Forster Uprichard died in 1949 leaving Elmfield to his son Richard Rutledge Kane Uprichard, known as ‘Rut’. Unfortunately Rutledge died not long afterwards in 1952 and the castle was later sold to the Shaw family. (Rankin)

In the late1860s, when Elmfield was first built the gardens had been planted with rhododendrons, azaleas and specimen trees with rose gardens around the house together with a walled, kitchen garden. When the Shaw family bought the house in 1958 they began to restore the gardens. In 1989 a Belgian landscape designer Francois Goffinet was commissioned to develop an overall plan. (Rankin) The course of the entrance driveway has been altered as part of these renovations.

The present lodge has fallen into a state of dereliction in recent years but Dean includes drawings of front and side elevations, and a full description of the building calling it a ‘shell of a lodge built in the highest quality punched sandstone ashlar with much fine sculpted detailing.’ Over the front door remains the Dickson crest of a hand bearing a sword. (Dean)

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. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/12/C/3 First General Revaluation (1933-57)
9. PRONI Will of Henry Albert Uprichard died 11th November 1901
10. Belfast Newsletter 20th January 1851
11. Belfast Newsletter 24th August 1867
12. 1901 census online
13. 1911 census online

Secondary Sources

1. Dean, J. A. K. “The Gate Lodges of Ulster: A Gazetteer.” Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1994.
2. 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
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A single-storey sandstone gate lodge in Scots Baronial style, built c.1870 to designs by William Spence, who also designed Gilford Castle, and located to the north side of the main entrance to Elmfield (HB17/01/034A). Although vacant for approximately five decades, the lodge is in a poor state of repair, important detailing survives and the lodge remains of special historic interest, in itself and having important group value with Elmfield (HB17/01/034A) and being a good surviving example of a mid-nineteenth century gate lodge by a prominent architect.