Laurel Vale

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached three-bay two-storey stone house, built c.1830, with two-storey return. T-shape on plan facing west on the east side of Ballinderry Road near the village of Aghalee. Range of single and two-storey lime-washed outbuildings to the north and east.

Pitched natural slate roof with clay ridge tiles and pair of rendered chimneystacks rising from both gable ends with octagonal clay pots. Cast-iron guttering on iron brackets to redbrick eaves course continuing across both gables. Galleted rubblestone walling with simulated redbrick flat-arches to front openings. Square-headed window openings with original timber sash windows, exposed sash boxes and sandstone sills.

Symmetrical front elevation is three windows wide with central elliptical-headed door opening having original woodgrained timber doorcase. Early raised and fielded panelled door having ten panels flanked by three-pane sidelights each flanked by fluted pilasters to a stepped lintel cornice and webbed timber fanlight above. Door opens onto stone platform and gravel footpath to enclosed front garden.

Rough-cast cement rendered north gable with single window opening to first floor having single-pane timber sash window. Rear end of gable is abutted by screen wall having pedestrian opening and stone lintel.

Rear elevation abutted by two-storey rear return with a single enlarged window opening to the exposed section of the ground floor. Further rendered brick chimneystack to return with two original timber sash windows, a boarded up window and a bipartite 4/4 timber sash window with overlights. The south elevation of the return has a lean-to projection, while the rear gable is rough-cast rendered with timber plank door.

South gable is abutted by mid twentieth-century greenhouse with a steel casement window to the first floor.

Setting:
Located on the east side of Ballinderry Road just north of the village of Aghalee, set within its own grounds accessed via wrought-iron gates on circular rendered piers and gravel lane along the north side of the house, lined with single and two-storey lime-washed outbuildings having tiled roofs, timber plank doors and some timber sash windows. Front garden enclosed by hedge and wrought-iron pedestrian gate and gravel footpath.

Roof Natural slate
Walling Galleted rubblestone
Windows Original timber sash
RWG Cast-iron

Historical information

Laurel Vale appears on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey maps in 1832 as an L–shaped building. The Townland Valuation of 1834 notes Mrs Anne Thompson as the first recorded occupant but that at some time before 1834 Samuel Thompson (uncertain whether it is her son or widower), took over the residence. Although no outbuildings are noted on the first Ordnance Survey map, the Townland Valuation records no less than five office buildings. The house and its return were classed as 1b+, the entire site being valued at £10.

In 1838 the Ordnance Survey Memoirs described Laurel Vale as the residence of Samuel Thompson, ‘a very neat 2-storey and slated house lately built by his parents … on the north side of, and contiguous to, the Old Church of Aghalee.’ The writer also states that Laurel Vale possessed attractive office houses as well as a ‘handsome orchard.’ Further Samuel Thompson possessed 57 English acres of farm land and owned a corn kiln which he hired out for ‘public accommodation.’

By the period of Griffith’s Valuation (1859) the property was recorded as ‘House, office and land’ valued at £12. and let by the Marquis of Hertford. Samuel Thompson occupied Laurel Vale until his death on 23rd January 1900. Thompsons’ will granted a sum of £517. 7s. to the Rev. John William Sleator Clerk, incumbent of Trinity Church of Ireland (PRONI Wills Catalogue – 19/03/1900). From 1901 the house was briefly occupied by a William Lewis until a Robert Joseph Lewis bought the property in 1905. William Lewis’ will dated 4th March 1907 granted the sum of £730. 17s. 8d. to Robert Joseph Lewis and William Morrow Lewis.

Census records, however, show Robert Joseph Lewis (born c. 1862) living in the house in 1911 with his wife of 24 years, Sarah Jane Lewis (44) and five of his eight children. The house was returned as a second class dwelling consisting of at least eight rooms and the landholder recorded as Robert Joseph Lewis a local farmer. The extensive out offices included a stable, coach house, cow house, 2 calf houses, a dairy, piggery, fowl house, boiling house, barn, a potato house and a shed. A number of these out offices were likely erected by Robert Lewis as the fourth edition of the Ordnance Survey maps (1920-21) shows three main office buildings at rear of the house, when the third edition (1901-2) only recorded a single office building.

Robert Lewis occupied Laurel Vale until the Revisions ended in 1928. His son William Lewis was recorded as a Chemists Assistant in the 1911 Census; however, after the outbreak of the Great War in 1914 he enlisted as a member of the Canadian Infantry serving in the Manitoba Regiment. He was fighting along the Ypres Salient in 1915 when on 22nd April he was a victim of the first recorded use of mustard gas by the German Army. He was later buried at Menin Gate Memorial Cemetery in Ypres.

Field evidence supports an early nineteenth century date of construction and has found that the interior layout and many original features of the house remain intact. Brett describes the house as a ‘very pleasing three-bay two-storey late Georgian house of about 1830 … with a three-bay two-storey return.’ He states that Robert Joseph Lewis occupied the house until a new owner bought the farm in 1948 and resided there until the time Brett was writing in 1996 (Brett, p. 187).

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI VAL/1/A/1/62 – Field Map c.1830
2. PRONI VAL/1/B/166 – Townland Valuation
3. PRONI OS/6/1/62/1 – First Edition OS Map 1832
4. PRONI OS/6/1/62/2 – Second Edition OS Map 1858
5. PRONI OS/6/1/62/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1900-1901
6. PRONI OS/6/1/62/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1920-1921
7. PRONI VAL/2/B/1/58 – Griffith’s Valuation 1859
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/9/2 A – Annual Revisions 1863-1879
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/9/2 B – Annual Revisions 1880-1894
10. PRONI VAL/12/B/9/2 C – Annual Revisions 1895-1905
11. PRONI VAL/12/B/9/2 D – Annual Revisions 1906-1918
12. PRONI VAL/12/B/9/2 E – Annual Revisions 1918-1928
13. PRONI Wills Catalogue (1900)

Secondary Sources

1. Brett, C. E. B., ‘Buildings of County Antrim’ Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1996.
2. NIEA File – HB19/03/042.

Online Resources

Glenavy History: http://www.glenavyhistory.com/ (Genealogy website).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Detached three-bay two-storey stone house, built c.1830, with two-storey return. Located on the east side of Ballinderry Road close to the village of Aghalee. The symmetrical well proportioned front elevation retains all its original elements and materials which together with the intact interior constitute an important example of a modest but formal farm dwelling of the early nineteenth-century. In addition, the linear ranges of rubblestone outbuildings and the formal front garden add to the overall importance of this house.