52 Plantation Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Three storey gabled mid to late eighteenth century former linen mill owner's house situated in a area known at The Plantation to the East of Lisburn beside the M1 motorway. The main house is one room deep with a narrower and lower three storey return.

The front elevation faces almost south and is three storey in a symetrical arragement of three bays with a central door and stepped quoins to the cormers.. The ground floor has had a painted timber sun room added in the late twentieth century along with 2 earlier canted bays. The two upper floors have three windows on each floor. The narrower central one lighting a landing and the others being wider.

East elevation is has a large projecting chimney breast which has been curtailed at roof level where a yellow clay brick chimney stack was erected probably at the end of the nineteenth century. The only opening to the main house is a door (now sealed) with 2 panels to the bottom and glazed panels to the top.

Rear elevation has a shallow pitched single storey lean-to extension with a blank wall above apart from a small replacementwindow to the top floor.

The roof of the main building is double pitched with yellow clay brick chimney stacks at either gable.

The return is a single room wide and is double pitched as the main block. The east elevation has a fixed light window and a glazed double door to the ground floor and two painted timber windows to each of the floors above, These are generally replacements. The end of the return has an external staicase leading to the first floor. The rest of the gabled end is covered in ivy. The West elevation has a window to the ground floor and 2 windows to each of the upper floors - all replacement.

Walling - flont elevation smooth render; other elevations and return roughcast render
Windows - generally replacement painted timber with top opening or fixed lights.
Roof - natural Bangor blue slates.

No 52 shares a
setting with the attached 2 storey no 50 (see record HB19.09.012) . The house is set back from Plantation Road behind a tall random rubble stone wall with a now blocked up vehicular entrance, one rendered gate pier of which remains. This may have been the main access for both houses. No 52 is now accessed through a set of unusual ornate wrought iron gates supported on square wrought iron openwork posts either side of which are simple iron railings set into a dwarf rendered wall with painted stone coping. Behind this wall and to the side and rear are mainly grassed gardens. There is a rendered and slated twentieth century double garage to the rear. The earlier Ordinance Survey maps indicate that there was an extensive industrial complex to the North this has all been demolished and late twentieth century houses have been erected. Similarly there was mill workers housing at the roadside and this has been cleared away leaving No's 50 and 52 the only historic houses in the vicinity apart from no 74 Plantaton Road that also has connectio9n with the Barbour Linen business.

Historical information

50-52 Plantation Road, Ballymullan, Lisburn

The present No.50 and 52 Plantation Road are shown on the OS map of 1834 as part of a larger, roughly U-shaped complex marked ‘Old Thread Manufactory’. In the first valuation of January of the same year, the complex is noted as divided into three ownerships. The majority of the buildings were held by Ms. (or Mrs.) Eliza Barber [Barbour], rated for valuation purposes at £20-6-0 and described as a ‘Thread factory, unoccupied, not in use and going to ruin’. This former factory, which appears to have included some buildings located on the opposite side of the road, consisted of, an ‘office- artificers house 1B- 22½ft x 19½ x 18, office- artificers house 1C 40 x 17 x 16½, office- factory 1B- 71 x 20 x 30, office- factory 1C+ 68 x 20 x 18, house- factory 1C+ 50 x 20 x 15, offices- factory 2C- 46 x 19 x 9, and another house- occupied by a William Campbell ‘1C+ 21½ x 16 x 9.’ As will be deduced form these figures, the present no.50 and 52 were not part of the complex by this stage. The former, which not only included the house itself (‘1B 45ft x 19½ x 17’) but also an old thatched outbuilding measuring 13 x 17 x 9, is noted as in the hands of a Rev. Alexander Henderson, with the valuers stating that it was ‘too large, for the proprietor holds no land’, and rating it at £5-8-0. The latter, was in the possession of a William Kelsey, (who appears to have been related to Henderson), was rated at £14-1-0, and, like its neighbour was noted by the valuers as ‘too much for the present proprietor’. The house is recorded as measuring 37½ x 20½ x 24, with a return of 24½ x 19 x 23, and three outbuildings of 50 x 17 x 6½, 20½ x 26½ x 15 and 55½ x 20 x 15.

The complex itself is said by various secondary sources [see refs 4, 6] to have been built in or shortly after 1784, by John Barbour, a native of Paisley in Scotland, who migrated to Ireland and commenced the manufacture of linen thread in the area south-east of Lisburn known as ‘The Plantation’. A house marked ‘Plantation’, however, is shown in the area on Taylor’s and Skinner’s map of 1777, and some of the internal detailing, (notably lugged architraves, the arrangement of the panels on many of the doors, the noticeably low staircase with thick handrail, and a simple moulded surround to one of the fireplaces), points to an early to mid 18th century date. A Hertford estate map of 1726 shows no indication of any dwelling, but it must be said that the cartographer does not appear to have had any interest in depicting buildings anyhow. The plot itself was known as ‘The Plantation’ at this date, and the leaseholders are recorded as Henry and William Close; the Closes are also recorded on a rent roll of 1728, but unfortunately an apparent lack of documentary evidence for the decades immediately following precludes any speculation about any building activity they may have undertaken. It is possible, therefore that there was a dwelling on the site prior to 1784, and that this was simply acquired by John Barbour. It is possible also that Barbour may have extended the building, the fact that the detailing to both the uppermost floor of the three-storey section and the return differs from the rest of the house suggesting, perhaps, that both sections are later additions.

Barbour himself is said to have lived in the main three-storey house (no.52), with the attached two-storey dwelling (no.50- which he may also have added) the residence of the mill manager. By the early 1800s over one hundred are believed to have been employed at the works, with many living within small dwellings in and around the site itself. John Barbour died in 1823 and thread production was carried on at the Plantation for a short period by his son, also named John. Another son, William, started his own thread mill at Hilden and when John died in c.1830-31 William purchased the plant and transferred all operations to the Hilden works. It was probably at this point that the former family home and the manager’s house were sold off to Henderson and Kelsey.

Some time between 1834 and 1861 the whole complex was acquired from the Barbours by Kelsey. This may have been before 1846, for he is noted as running a (corn) mill in Slater’s directory of that year- presumably using some of the former factory buildings. In the valuation of 1861 Kelsey is recorded as also owning the thirteen other houses within the Plantation area, the majority of these former mill-workers houses erected by the Barbours with most situated within a row to the south of the main house, fronting on to the road. As for the former manager’s house, it is probable that Kelsey utilised this for a time to accommodate some of this large family of 24 children.

William Kelsey died c.1869-70 and his Plantation properties passed to Henderson Kelsey, who was probably responsible for the addition of the canted bays to the main house. In 1886, Mr. Kelsey leased the former manger’s house to an Alice McHarg. In 1891 this lease passed to a John Higginson, and two years later to a Hugh Smith; in the same year Kelsey acquired the freehold of the entire grouping from the Hertford estate.

Henderson Kelsey died c.1911-12 and the property passed to Thomas Kelsey. Thomas was still living in no.52 up until at least 1930, with the lease of no.50 passing to a Samuel Smith c.1908, and then to (another) Hugh Smith in 1918. According to local historian, Mavis Heaney, William Henderson Kelsey inherited both houses in 1948. By this stage the former factory / mill structures were being used as farm buildings, no.52 having taken on the name ‘Plantation Farm’, with no.50 (within which William installed two of his aunts, Miss Louise and Miss Margaret Kelsey) known as ‘The Laurels’.

In 1954 Hillsborough RDC acquired the former the row of former mill-worker’s houses close to the roadside and demolished them in order to make way for the present Andrews Park development. Many of the former factory structures to the north of nos.50 and 52 (including the remains of a horse or ox-walk known locally as the ‘old bull-ring’) survived until the 1990s until cleared away by the Plantation Mews development.

References- Primary sources
1 D/427/3A-B Hertford (Wallace) Estate Papers ‘Suvey of part of the estate of the Rt. Hon. Francis, Lord Conway…drawn by Jonathon Sloan’, 1726
2 D/427/2 Hertford (Wallace) Estate Papers ‘Rent roll of the estate of the Rt. Hon. Francis, Lord Conway, 1728
3 ‘Taylor’s and Skinner’s maps of the roads of Ireland’ (Dublin, 1777), map 277
4 PRONI VAL/1A/3/14 OS map, Co Down sheet 14, with valuation
references, 1834
5 PRONI VAL/1B/315 First valuation, Blaris parish, 1834-38
6 PRONI VAL/2A/3/14C OS map, Co Down sheet 14, with valuation references, 1858-61
7 PRONI VAL/2B/3/24A Second valuation, Blaris parish, 1861
8 PRONI VAL/12B/20/6A Annual valuation revision book, Blaris ED, 1863-75
9 PRONI VAL/12B/20/6B Annual valuation revision book, Blaris ED, 1875-84
10 PRONI VAL/12B/20/6C Annual valuation revision book, Blaris ED, 1885-89
11 PRONI VAL/12B/20/6D Annual valuation revision book, Blaris ED, 1890-1900
12 PRONI VAL/12B/20/6E Annual valuation revision book, Blaris ED, 1901-08
13 PRONI VAL/12B/20/6F Annual valuation revision book, Blaris ED, 1909-20
14 PRONI VAL/12B/20/6G Annual valuation revision book, Blaris ED, 1921-29

Secondary sources
1 ‘The Barbours of Hilden and their Scottish ancestors and American relations (1907) [Author and publisher not known]
2 Green, E.R.R., ‘The industrial archaeology of County Down’ (Belfast, 1963), p.26
3 Green, E.R.R., “Thomas Barbour and the American linen-thread industry” in [?] (1981), pp.213-?
4 Heaney, Mavis, ‘Lisburn, life in the County Down…’ (Shiloh Publications, 1996), pp.66-73
5 Mackey, Brian, ‘Lisburn, the town and its people 1873-1973 (Belfast, 2000), p.8
6 Rankin, Kathleen, ‘The line houses of the Lagan Valley…’ (Belfast, UHF, 2002), pp.40-46

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
W. Northern Ireland/International Interest

Evaluation

Mid to late eighteenth century three storey former linen mill owner's house probably constructed for John Barbour who came to Lisburn in 1784 and started a linen manufacturing business at this site. One of his sons William went on to construct the listed thread factory (see HB19.17.013) at nearby Hilden which became one of the biggest and most significant linen businesses in N ireland. The house contains a rare example of a robust eighteenth century staircase and is also significant for its 6 panelled doors with lugged architraves from the same period. It represents a direct link to the start of the Barbour Threads manufactury which later became famous around the world and is therefore a significant part of the linen heritage of the Lagan valley and the wider country. There have been some inappropriate works such as the replacement windows and sun-room but these are all reversible and the main fabric of the house remains intact.