Riversley House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A symmetrical three-bay two-storey-with-attic house, now in use by a Housing Association, built c.1800 and located to the east side of Bridge Street in Banbridge town centre. Rectangular plan with large two- and-three-storey modern extension to rear.

Pitched natural slate roof with blue/black angled ridge tiles and rendered chimneystacks having tall terracotta pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on moulded and corbelled eaves course. Walling is painted smooth render on a contrasting plinth. Windows are replacement 6/6 timber sliding sash with horns and projecting stone sills.

The principal elevation faces southwest and is arranged about a central elliptical-arched doorcase, with three openings to each floor. Four granite steps lead to a raised-and-pointed four panel timber door with sidelights flanked by pilasters and surmounted by a segmental overlight, all in a painted surround with V-joints.

The northwest elevation has two casement windows to attic and is partially abutted by adjoining building (HB17/04/010B).

The northeast (rear) elevation has a replacement uPVC window to first and ground floor left; abutted at right by the large two-and-three-storey extension (of no interest).

The southeast elevation has two uPVC windows to attic.

Setting

Set back from the street with a small lawned garden to front enclosed with a smooth rendered wall with square gate and corner piers having pointed caps; those to centre support a cast-iron latch gate. To southeast gable is a modern metal gate leading to a rear entrance housed in the modern two-and-three-storey extension to rear.

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

Historical information

The current house dates from c1800 and forms part of a terrace in Church Street that spans the early to mid-nineteenth century. However, primary evidence suggests that the terrace may have been built up around a core of simpler buildings dating from the earliest days of the establishment of the town. As Banbridge has grown, the terrace has been raised and improved, gradually coming to reflect the boom in the town’s fortunes brought by the growth of a worldwide linen trade. By the early nineteenth century, these Church Street houses were desirable addresses and the terrace could lay a fair claim to be Banbridge’s ‘Harley Street’ providing a series of consulting rooms and surgeries for doctors, dentists and even a vet. To this day, several houses in the terrace provide office accommodation for professional people.

Early maps of Banbridge are often highly stylised and open to a degree of interpretation but a 1703 map of the ‘Bann Crossing’ shows a single-storey three-bay dwelling in the vicinity of the current terrace which may well have been the first building on the site. A new bridge was erected across the Bann in 1712 and in subsequent years the town began to grow as a centre of the linen industry, holding the largest fairs for linen cloth in the County of Down by 1744. By this time the town was the property of Wills Hill, Earl of Hillsborough who laid out the streets and encouraged people to build by granting sections of land at nominal rents in perpetuity added to which were ‘town parks’ or small farms in the neighbourhood of the town. (Linn; Magennis) Maps of 1755 and 1771 show buildings on the site as does the first edition OS map of 1833. The ordnance survey map shows gaps in the terrace which indicate that some of the buildings in the terrace were rebuilt/remodelled before the next edition in 1860. The current house is shown as rectangular on plan with outbuildings forming three sides of a courtyard to the rear.

In the Townland Valuation, number 4 is listed as the property of John, then George Law and is a house, offices and yard valued at £24. George Law is listed as an ‘attorney’ in Pigot’s Directory of 1824 and the Belfast Directory of 1841-2 states that he also had a Dublin office, in Gardiner Street. The Townland Valuation gives dimensions for the house and three two-storey outbuildings.

By the time of Griffith’s Valuation the house has been leased by the Law family to William Walker and the map and valuation records show that the house has gained returns to the rear. The valuer describes it as a ‘very fine’, ‘stone finished’ house with ‘good attics’ and it is valued at £35 and £1 for the yard and garden. William Walker was a local linen merchant who had built a power loom factory near Banbridge in 1865. By 1866 Messrs William Walker & Co employed three hundred people. (Rankin) Walker died in 1889 a very wealthy man and in his will leaves monetary gifts to a lengthy list of friends and relatives, including many local linen families and the wife of Andrew McClelland, solicitor, who was to be the next resident in the present house. (Will of William Walker)

Andrew McClelland took over the house in 1891 and was still present at the time of the 1901 census. In 1901 Andrew McClelland was a 58-year-old solicitor who lived with his wife and son, who was his apprentice in the profession. The family kept two domestic servants, a cook and a housemaid. McClelland continues to work as a solicitor and is listed again in the 1911 census now living with a boarder, a 51-year-old man of no occupation but still retaining a domestic servant. Three of McClelland’s five children had not survived to maturity, showing that high infant mortality rates affected the middle classes as well as those less well-off. A photograph dating from 1911 depicts the former railings and gate piers to the property which have since been removed. (Young and Quail)
Subsequent occupiers were H S McClelland (1919) and Dr Robert Martin who bought the property for £1500 in 1921. When the house was revalued at £47 in the early 1930s, it was being leased by Dr Robert Martin from Rev H B Eaton. The accommodation comprised; a hall, two front receptions, a kitchen, two pantries and a wash house. On the first floor were a surgery and waiting room, bath and separate WC, and three front bedrooms. On the top floor were three attic bedrooms. The valuer commented that the outbuildings were not used except as a garage and that the house was ‘well kept up and in good condition throughout’. The plan and dimensions show the house and a surgery situated in a rear return with a coal store beneath. A glass house is shown in the garden. Dr Martin was followed by Thomas E Reade (1937) and Geoffrey A C Miller (1949).

A comparison with the photograph taken at the time of the first survey in 1986 shows that the facade has not greatly altered in the period since listing apart from the replacement of 1/1 sliding sash windows by more appropriate 6/6 windows. The building now houses office accommodation for the sheltered housing that has been built in the former garden to the rear.

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 (c1900)
4. PRONI OS/6/3/27/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1903-18
5. PRONI VAL /1/B/348A Townland Valuation (1828-40)
6. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/64C Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/6A-H Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/7A-C Annual Revisions (1899-1930)
9. PRONI VAL/3/C/4/4 First General Revaluation (1936-57)
10. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/2/A/5 First General Revaluation (1933-57)
11. PRONI Will of William Walker, died 13 December 1889
12. PRONI D695/M/1 Banbridge 1703
13. PRONI D695/M/2 County Down 1755
14. PRONI D671/M/1/7 Banbridge 1771
15. Pigot & Co Directory 1824
16. Belfast Directory 1841/2

Secondary Sources
1. Linn, Captain R “A History of Banbridge” (edited by W S Kerr) Banbridge Chronicle Press, 1935
2. Magennis, P “Banbridge, An Illustrated History and Companion” Donaghadee, Cottage Publications, 1996
3. Rankin, K “The Linen Houses of the Bann Valley, The story of their families” Belfast, Ulster Historical Foundation, 2007
4. Young, A F and Quail, D “Old Banbridge” Stenlake Publishing, 2002

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A symmetrical three-bay two-storey-with-attic house built c.1800, now in use by a Housing Association. Much architectural detailing and the original proportions survive although an extensive two-and-three-storey extension dominates the site to rear and the interior has been entirely refurbished with alterations to the original layout and significant loss of historic fabric and character. However, the house is part of an important terrace (HB17/04/010A-F) and representing the early development of and ongoing changes in the town.

General comments

Previously HB17/04/010