Brookfield House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A symmetrical three-bay two-storey house with outbuildings in extensive grounds to the north side of Scarva Road west of Banbridge; built c.1760 and extended c.1830 to designs by Thomas Jackson. The house has recently been severely damaged by fire and is abandoned. Rectangular main block (c.1830) with adjoining parallel wing (c.1760) and two-storey return to rear. Rear return is abutted to north at right angles by the two-storey outbuildings, forming a central yard.

Roof has been severely damaged by fire; formerly hipped with some natural slates remaining. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods on bracketed timber eaves. Walling is harled render with smooth plat-band between floors. Windows are largely damaged or infilled with concrete blocks; those surviving are 6/6 timber-framed sash (without glazing) and projecting sills.

The principal elevation faces south and is five openings wide to each floor. To centre at ground floor is a tetra-style portico with fluted columns and pilaster responds, plain entablature and parapet topped by decorative cast-iron balustrade. The entrance door has been infilled with concrete blocks but an ornate carved timber fanlight and six-panelled timber door survive.

The west elevation has a window to first floor centre.

The north elevation is almost entirely abutted by the original house (c.1760) forming a parallel wing, which is abutted to right by the two-storey return. West gable of original house has three windows to first and ground floor; east gable has two windows to first and ground floor. The two-storey return to rear is six openings wide at first floor and four openings wide at ground floor (mostly infilled with concrete blocks). East elevation has external steps to timber-sheeted door at first floor right; remnants of timber-sheeted door to ground floor left. Three remaining 1/1 timber-framed windows to first floor.

The east elevation has a window to first floor centre.

Setting

Set in extensive mature grounds to the west of Banbridge town centre. Accessed from south by a tree-lined mud track leading to farmyard at east. Two gate-lodges (HB17/05/004B) flank entrance; former weaving factory with tall red-brick chimney and associated early twentieth-century factory buildings to southeast of house. Yard has a variety of single and two-storey rendered outbuildings; some with surviving timber-sheeted doors and timber-framed sash windows. That to east has a slated roof with square metal dovecote to ridgeline. To north of site is a former two-storey coach-house and adjoining stable block, in a dilapidated state. Red-brick chimneystacks to gables and some timber-framed sliding sash windows with projecting granite sills. Garden is enclosed to northeast by a tall rendered wall with elliptical-headed arch to yard having original wrought-iron gates. Rear yard accessed to east by original square gate piers with pointed caps supporting original wrought-iron gates. To west of garden is a Victorian folly of a Gothic stone arch over pathway. The land to south of the site, on either side of the entrance, has recently been developed with a housing estate comprising two-storey semi-detached red-brick dwellings.

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

Historical information

Brookfield House is thought to have been built in 1760 for Brice Smyth, founder of a linen dynasty that occupied the house for over two hundred years. The associated manufacturing concern, which in its early days operated from the rear of the house itself, flourished into modern times. The house is thought to have been remodelled by Thomas Jackson c1840 and incorporates an earlier farmhouse as a rear return but has recently been severely damaged by fire and vandalism. (Rankin)

‘Brookfield’ is shown, captioned, on the first edition OS map of 1833 as a large house on a complex plan with extensive outbuildings to the side and rear, which housed a linen thread concern. Gate lodges are shown, uncaptioned, at the head of the driveway. The second edition of 1860 suggests that the house has been remodelled with a porch shown to the front facade. ‘Gate Lodges’ and a ‘Summer Ho[use]’ are also captioned. This edition also shows a ‘boiling house’ on the river to the east of the house. By the fourth edition of 1903-18 the boiling house has expanded into ‘Brookfield Factory’ a flourishing concern which occupied a large site beside Brookfield House.

It is thought that Brice Smyth was the builder around 1760 of the original house and linen manufactory. His son and grandsons all joined the linen trade forming a business that traded as Brice Smyth & sons of Brookfield. One of the grandsons, John Smyth bought land at Lenaderg and built Milltown House, also thought to have been designed by Thomas Jackson and the other, also called Brice remained at Brookfield. Brice Smyth (1796-1851) was blinded by smallpox when he was twelve but overcame his disability and succeeded his father in the business, building Brice Smyth & Sons into a very successful firm specialising in the manufacture of heavy shirting linen. (Rankin) Brice Smyth became a renowned teacher in the linen industry, instructing many of the men who went on to found the great linen firms of Ulster. He was able to judge the quality of cloth by rubbing his fingernail over it to count the number of threads per inch. On one occasion, Brice is reputed to have become aware of a weaver stealing some hanks of weft in the factory by noticing that the man was holding his breath. From the 1830s on, Brice Smyth was employing 2,000 weavers and importing mill spun yarn from England. The yarn would be boiled, sorted and wound at Brookfield before being given out to the weavers. (McCandless)

The Townland Valuation (1828-40) lists the occupier as Brice Smith. The property is a house, offices and a linen thread manufactory together valued at £38. Dimensions are given for the house and four returns, and the ‘thread and brown cloth’ manufactory. In the inner courtyard is a building approached by stone steps. It is said that Brice Smyth used this room to receive and check the cloth woven by local cottage weavers to whom he supplied thread. It was later converted into a billiard room by William Anderson Smyth and was hung with sporting pictures, especially of the hunt. A two-storey building in the outer courtyard is said to have been a school with the principal’s house beside it. Brookfield House was remodelled c1840 with the addition of a porch which is shown on the second edition of 1860. Brice Smyth died in 1851, leaving his 15-year-old son William to take over the firm. (McCandless)

Griffith’s Valuation of 1856-64 has the owner as William Smyth, Brice Smyth’s son and heir, who leases the property from Isabella Dunbar, a sister of linen manufacturer Hugh Dunbar. The house is valued at £45 and is situated in an estate of over 66 acres. The valuer comments that it is a ‘very good house and a handsome portico, plastered and stone finished, neat lawn &c’ and that the outbuildings were ‘formerly used as thread factory’. The gate houses are sited in a neighbouring townland and are valued separately at £2.10s the valuer commenting that the apartments are ‘very small’. The nearby weaving factory was built in 1884 at a cost of £1500 and was periodically expanded – in 1888, 1892, 1896, 1911 and 1920. (Rankin; Valuation records). William Smyth lived at Brookfield until his death in 1913 and with his son William Anderson Smyth built the new power loom factory beside the family home. The name of the firm was then changed to Smyth’s Weaving Co Ltd and it specialised in the manufacture of fine and coarse linens. William Smyth was one of the largest employers in Banbridge district and was a prominent local figure serving on the County Council and active in the Banbridge Agricultural and Farming Society. He was a senior elder in Scarva Street Presbyterian Church and superintendent of the Sabbath School for fifty years. (Rankin) The avenue leading to Brookfield, lined with mature beech trees was also the main access to the factory. Brookfield House was self-sufficient. It had a three acre walled garden surrounding it, reputedly built during the famine to give employment to local people. The grotto icehouse in the ornamental gardens still stands but a gothic summerhouse has since been demolished. The stream to the milldam ran through the gardens, only a few yards from the summerhouse. (McCandless)

At the time of the 1901 census, William Smyth, linen merchant aged 65 was living with his County Limerick wife, his son David Wilson Smyth and his married daughter Lucinda Evelyn Ferguson. The family kept two domestic servants, unmarried women in their twenties, one of whom was their cook. The house had 16 rooms and was designated first class by the census. By the time of the 1911 census William Smyth had become a magistrate and was living with two of his adult children, one of whom, Edmund Fitzgerald Smyth later fell in the First World War. The family continued to keep two servants, both of whom were Roman Catholic.

After William Smyth’s death the house passed to William’s widow, his second wife Jane Robinson Smyth. One of their daughters, Lucinda, had married into the Ferguson family who briefly became resident in the 1930s and 40s, before Brookfield passed to David Wilson Smyth in 1950.

At the time of the First General Revaluation in 1933/4 the occupier was Colonel J D Ferguson who leased the house from David W Smyth. The house and outbuildings were revalued at £56 and most of the agricultural land was separated off from the house, leaving just 7 acres. The accommodation was eight bedrooms, three receptions, two then three bathrooms, a cloak room and lavatory, billiard-room, kitchen, scullery and washhouse. Electric light was initially from works then from mains. Central heating was provided by a boiler in the cellar. Ferguson paid a rent of £100 pa free. At the time the house was described as old-fashioned but partly modernised and ‘poorish in back’.

During the Second World War, Brookfield factory wove aircraft linen to cover Mosquito planes, khaki for soldiers’ uniforms and tent duck, a thread used for army tents. After the War, Smyths amalgamated with a Dungannon Company to form Moygashel Ltd and in 1964 this company was taken over by the textile giant Courtaulds. Courtaulds raised wages and introduced an automatic loom that produced more cloth with less labour. A ‘housewife’s shift’ from 5.30 to 10 pm was also introduced. The factory at Brookfield closed in December 1980 with a recession in the domestic textile market and a strong pound being blamed, although the firm continued to weave in Dungannon. The former factory is now derelict. (McCandless)

David Wilson Smyth, who lived in the house from 1950, was for many years a Director of the family firm ‘Smyth’s Weaving Co Ltd’. Smyth also later became a Director of the Belfast Ropeworks Co Ltd and was involved with the Northern Ireland Transport Board and its replacement the Ulster Transport Authority, becoming Vice-Chairman in later life. He was a keen golfer and won the Irish Open Amateur Championship in 1921. (McCandless)

The house was listed in 1976 and repairs and renovations took place in the 1980s and 1990s. In 1993 the house was sold and was bought by a local farmer who wished to turn it into a guest house. These plans never came to fruition however and the house was sold again. Since 2011 fires and vandalism have destroyed much of the fabric of the house leaving it almost a shell. (HB file)

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/348B Townland Valuation (1828-40)
6. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/41 Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/6A-H Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
8. PRONI VAL/3/C/4/1 First General Revaluation (1936-57)
9. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/3/E/5 First General Revaluation (1933-57)
10. 1901 census online
11. 1911 census online
12. NIEA HB file

Secondary Sources

1. McCandless, P “Smyths of the Bann”
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
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
V. Authorship

Evaluation

Brookfield House is a symmetrical three-bay two-storey house thought to have been built in 1760 and remodelled by Thomas Jackson c1840 and incorporating an earlier farmhouse. Evolving from a simple Georgian country house dating from the mid-eighteenth century and later extended in a distinctive classical style to designs by Thomas Jackson, the house has recently been severely damaged by fire and is abandoned. Despite its current condition, historic detailing and the early-nineteenth century floor-plan survive and the historic character is discernable. Historic connections with the linen industry in the area are of note. The setting, including garden structures and outbuildings, as well as the nearby factory add to its significance. Brookfield also has group value with its lodges (HB17/05/004B) and original gates.