Glenbanna House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A symmetrical three-bay one-and-a-half-storey dormered double-pile house; built c.1850 on the site of an earlier dwelling and located to the east side of The Point Road in Lawrencetown. L-shaped plan comprising two adjoining rectangular blocks with single-storey canted bays to north; single-storey flat-roof extension to rear.

Pitched natural slate M-profile roof with terracotta ridge tiles and two centred smooth rendered chimneystacks; fretted bargeboards and finials to gables. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on projecting eaves with decorative trefoil fascia and bargeboards. Walling is roughcast render on a chamfered plinth with quoins. Windows are 1/1 timber sliding sash in moulded architrave unless otherwise stated.

The principal elevation faces north and is three openings wide to first floor. Canted bays flank central original panelled-and-glazed timber entrance door with side-lights having panelled timber aprons, accessed by a single stone step and fronted by an open timber portico. Portico has square piers, trefoil spandrels and is surmounted by a quatrefoil lattice parapet; three wall-head dormers with decorative bargeboards and finials to first floor.

The east elevation comprises two gabled bays; that to left is slightly wider and contains two 6/6 windows to first floor and two 1/1 windows to ground floor. Right bay has a 1/1 window at first floor and a panelled-and-glazed double-leaf timber door with transom light, accessed by two bull-nosed steps and set in a moulded architrave.

The south (rear) elevation is partially concealed. Three diminutive timber casement windows irregularly arranged to first floor. Abutted at left by the single-storey flat-roof return which is three 1/1 windows wide to west elevation and is abutted to south by a red-brick and timber greenhouse.

The west elevation comprises two gabled bays; that to right set back with two 6/6 windows to first floor, an enlarged replacement window to ground floor left and a 1/1 window to ground floor right. Left bay (slightly narrower) has a 1/1 window to first floor and a panelled-and-glazed double-leaf timber door with transom light, accessed by two bull-nosed steps and in a moulded architrave.

Setting:

Situated on a large mature site opposite St Patrick’s Catholic Church (HB17/02/015) and south of the Point Bridge (HB17/02/014) at The Point Road. Accessed via a long tarmacadamed avenue lined with giant beech trees. Formal gardens to west accessed via a round-arched cast-iron gate with wild meadow behind. To east of house are a set of stone steps and a cast-iron round-arched gate leading to a mature garden. Bounded to lane to west by rubble stone wall with curved entrance walls having castellated gate piers supporting replacement metal gates. The lane continues to east past a modern single storey garage and sweeps south to an equestrian courtyard. West of the courtyard entrance is a two storey stone barn with brick surrounds to openings, top hung timber casement windows and slate roof. The entrance pillars are modern with cast busts of horses. The stables, outbuildings and carriage houses are of modern construction single storey with monopitch corrugated fibre cement roof and painted rendered walls with the exception of a second stone barn to the west.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Render
Windows: Timber
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

Glenbanna House is a mid-Victorian linen house, built c.1850 as a replacement for an earlier dwelling, with remodelling c.1885. The house was built on the profits of a local linen industry that, by the early nineteenth century, dominated the area and had rendered it one of the most important inland industrial areas in Ireland. (Rankin) However, in later years the house was also home to one of the linen industry’s great characters, WJD Walker, whose keen interest in photography and in ‘assisting the poor to help themselves’ extended his reach beyond the linen trade and the Banbridge area.

‘Coose Vale’, named after Coose townland in which it is situated, is shown, captioned, on the first edition OS map of 1833 as a house on a rectangular plan with outbuildings around a courtyard to the rear. The original house dated from the late eighteenth century and was built by the Law family, sometime owners of Gilford estates who later sold their lands to Dunbar McMaster. (Rankin; Logan) The Townland Valuation of 1828-40 lists the property of Samuel Law which includes a spinning manufactory, bleach mills and offices but curiously fails to mention the dwelling house.

By the second edition of 1860 the house had been rebuilt or substantially remodelled, and although the OS map edition still captions the house ‘Coose Vale’, a notice in the Freeman’s Journal of 1857 concerning the birth of a son to William Law suggests that when the house was rebuilt it was from then on known as Glenbanna.

At the time of Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64), the occupier was William Law, who leased the house from Samuel Law who is now living at nearby Hazelbank. Dimensions are given for a two-storey house with returns, both double and single storey and a range of outbuildings including stables, coach house and greenhouse. The buildings are valued at £30. The owner of the house Samuel Law, died in 1867 and in the wake of a dispute relating to his will, Hazelbank factory, house and Glenbanna were sold. The mill and houses are offered for sale in the Belfast Newsletter of 11th September 1879. In 1880 the property was taken over by Thomas Dickson and William Walker, a linen draper of Banbridge who together set up the Hazelbank Weaving Company. William James Dickson Walker moved into Glenbanna and in 1885 Annual Revisions record that the house had been improved, the valuation consequently being raised to £35. Bassett’s Directory of 1886 singles out Glenbanna because of the giant beeches lining the avenue to the house ‘the branches forming a beautiful bower, 50 feet wide’. These beech trees are still present. (Rankin)

In 1891 the Congested Districts Board was established in Ireland in order to aid and develop agriculture, forestry and industry in the poorest areas of Ireland, largely the western counties. The Board was largely occupied with purchasing land from large estates which was redistributed to the tenants of smallholdings. W J D Walker became an organiser and inspector of industries for the Board and lists his occupation in 1901 as ‘Inspector Congested Districts Board’. While working for the Board Walker invented an improved hand-loom for wool weaving and placed his invention at the Board’s disposal. The looms were supplied to weavers in the west of Ireland on a loan instalment system. Walker was also instrumental in setting up lace and crochet schools throughout the congested districts, the 245 pupils being paid small amounts by the Board for their work. Walker was appointed an honorary member in 1910 and continued to serve on the Board until its dissolution in 1928. (O Conchubhair; Beattie) Walker was considered a ‘very remarkable’ man whose business knowledge and training had been essential for the ‘very considerable development’ of rural industries during his tenure. (Finance committee of Dail Eireann)

Walker was also a keen photographer and took a number of photographs during his work in the west of Ireland which are reproduced in Robinson’s ‘Further Memories of Irish Life’. In May 1896 the Belfast Newsletter reported an outing of the Ulster Amateur Photographic Society, by train to Scarva and Laurencetown under the leadership of W J D Walker. Pictures were taken in the grounds of Glenbanna, with a number of village children posing as anglers and in the afternoon Walker gave at Glenbanna what was one of the earliest demonstrations in Ireland of the new technology of ‘x-rays’. X-rays had been discovered in the closing months of 1895 by WC Röntgen who published a paper in late December and was later awarded the first Nobel prize in physics for the discovery. By the end of January 1896 the news had spread around the Western world and was a subject of enormous excitement among the public as well as the scientific community. (Peters) In Ireland, a number of photographs were presented to the Royal Dublin Society in February but it was not until March that a demonstration of the technique was given at the Royal College of Science. (Irish Times) In May a very full description of Walker’s demonstration was given in the Belfast Newsletter, Walker having brought the technique ‘to a marvellous state of perfection’ by means of modifications that allowed a number of people to see x-ray images produced on a screen – ‘many of the members availed of the opportunity of seeing the bones of their hands’. (Belfast Newsletter)

By 1911 Walker had left the house and William Forster Uprichard is listed as the occupier in Valuation records. It is, however, his brother 27-year-old Forster Green Uprichard, linen merchant, who is listed as the sole occupier in the 1911 census. Subsequent residents were William Reid, retired bank official who died in 1923 and James Brice Smyth of the well-known linen family, who was a factory manager, presumably of Hazelbank Weaving Co, and died in 1930. From 1932 the house was home to Anna Maria Smyth.

In the First General Revaluation of 1933/4 Anna Maria Smyth is living at the house which is revalued at £35. The accommodation comprises a hall, two receptions with bays at front, cloak room, kitchen, pantry and scullery and larder and a small room adjacent to the larder used as a sewing room. Upstairs are two good front bedrooms, a dressing room over hall, two back bedrooms, one large and one small, bathroom containing bath (encased) lavatory and WC (all old fashioned fittings). The valuer comments that it is an “old house (low 2 storeyed) in very fair condition but not modernised throughout. Stands in approximately 3.5 acres of well laid out garden. Agricultural land attached”. A plan and dimensions are given.
The house today remains in use as a domestic dwelling.

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 (?)
4. PRONI OS/6/3/27/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1903-18
5. PRONI VAL/1/B/350 Townland Valuation (1828-40)
6. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/48A Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/25A-D Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
8. PRONI VAL/12/F/4/2/9 Annual Revisions (1930-35)
9. PRONI VAL/3/C/4/2 First Annual Revaluation (1936-57)
10. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/3/V/1 First Annual Revaluation (1933-57)
11. Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser, 26th August 1857
12. Finance committee of Dail Eireann 9th June 1926
13. Belfast Newsletter of 11th September 1879
14. Irish Times 20th February 1896
15. Irish Times 2nd March 1896
16. Belfast Newsletter 7th May 1896
17. 1901 census online
18. 1911 census online

Secondary Sources

1. Bassett, G H “County Down One Hundred Years Ago: A Guide and Directory 1886” Belfast: Friar’s Bush Press, 1988
2. Beattie, Cottage Industries: Arts and Crafts in Donegal 1880-1920
3. Logan, R A “A Window on the Past, A History of Gilford County Down” Banbridge Chronicle, (n.d.)
4. Conchubhair, S M “The Congest Districts Board” The Irish Monthly, Vol 69, October 1941, pp477-488 and November 1941
pp517-525
5. Rankin, K “The Linen Houses of the Bann Valley, The story of their families” Belfast, Ulster Historical Foundation, 2007
6. Robinson, Sir Henry Augustus “Further Memories of Irish Life” 1924
7. Peters, P “W C Roentgen and the Discovery of X-rays” 1995 Textbook of Radiology Medcyclopedia.com

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Glenbanna House is an attractive three-bay two-storey symmetrical double-pile house; built c.1850 on the site of an earlier dwelling and located to the east side of The Point Road in Lawrencetown. Architectural detailing is largely intact and much of the original character has survived. The setting also survives, accessed via a long tree-lined avenue with formal gardens to west. Glenbanna House has connections with the local linen industry and associations with prominent local families. It is a good example of the type of smaller linen house in the district.