Lurganville House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

An asymmetrical three-bay two-storey detached galleted rubble stone house with outbuildings, originally a one-and-a-half-storey dwelling (probably thatched) dated 1772, but revised and remodelled c.1850; located in an unspoiled rural
setting north of Lurganville Road on the outskirts of Moira. Rectangular on plan with single-storey return to rear.

Pitched natural slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and two replacement brick chimneystacks. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods in boarded eaves. Walling is roughly squared rubble stone laid in courses with galletting and dressed quoins; stone differential between storey’s. Windows are uPVC replacements.

The principal elevation faces south and is six irregularly spaced openings wide. Entrance to right of centre; door has six raised-and-fielded panels with cast-iron door furniture in painted smooth render surround.

The west gable is concealed to ground floor; window to first floor left.

The north (rear) elevation was not accessed.

The east gable is concealed to ground floor; first floor is blank.

Setting:
Set back from the road with small lawned and shrubbed garden with gravel path to front, bounded to road by rubble stone wall, accessed from south and east by early decorative cast and wrought-iron latch gates. Side garden to east also accessed via wrought-iron gate and enclosed by rubble stone wall. Square gate piers with pointed caps to east gable; supporting modern timber gates, enclosing rear yard. To east is an early slated rubble stone range of outbuildings, timber vent to attic at south gable (some cement render repair work to east elevation); roof-light to west; other elevations concealed.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Rubble stone with galleted pointing
Windows: uPVC
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

A date stone located at the front of this two-storey rubble stone house suggests that it was constructed in 1772, supported by field inspection; the house appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map for the townland of Lurganville in 1833 where it was depicted, along the current layout, as an oblong building with either a return or outbuilding at the rear to the north, and an outbuilding to the east side of the house (which is situated on the site of the house’s current eastern outbuilding). The map tells us that this building was a ‘Freestone Quarry House’ associated with a small quarry which was located to the south-west of the site. The contemporary Townland Valuation of c. 1830 describes the house as a b+ class building (‘not new but in sound repair’) which measured 45 by 22ft and was a one-and-a-half storey building at 13ft in height; at that time the quarry house was valued at £5 11s. Between 1833 and 1858 considerable alteration to the site took place; the second edition of the Ordnance Survey map (1858) records that the outbuilding at the rear of the house were connected to the house which was first recorded as ‘Lurganville’ at this time. In 1861 Griffith’s Valuation recorded that the value of the house had increased to £10; this is the most likely point when Lurganville house was raised by one storey.

In 1861 the house was occupied by the Rev. James Mulligan, a Unitarian minister who had preached at an Arian Meeting House in Dunmurry in the 1830s but was retired by the time of Griffith’s Valuation (Ordnance Survey Memoirs, Co. Down III, Vol. 12, p. 12); Mulligan died in 1869 at the age of 70 after which time the house passed to the Rev. John Dixon who resided at Lurganville House between 1874 and 1884 (PRONI Wills Catalogue – 26 September 1869). The house passed between a number of occupants over the next 15 years until a Mr. Edmund McBride came into possession of the house in 1898. The 1911 Census tells us that McBride, a 57 year old Moravian farmer, resided at Lurganville House with his wife Harriet (57). The Census Building Return described the house as a 1st class dwelling which consisted of eight rooms and possessed a number of farm buildings including a stable, cow house, piggery, boiling house and a barn which were housed in the eastern and rear outbuildings. Edmund McBride bought the house from the Marquis of Downshire in 1913 and continued to reside there until the end of the Annual Revisions in 1929. Between the third edition (1903) and the fourth edition of the Ordnance Survey maps (1916) the modern outbuilding to the north of the house was constructed.

In 1979 the First Survey image shows that Lurganville House possessed an inappropriate redbrick porch, however since that time this porch has been removed. Lurganville House continues to be occupied; the house and its outbuilding are in an excellent state of preservation.

References
Primary Sources
1. PRONI OS/6/3/14/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey map 1833
2. PRONI OS/6/3/14/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/3/14/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey map 1903
4. PRONI OS/6/3/14/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey map 1916
5. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/47A – Griffith’s Valuation 1861
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/21/7A – Annual Revisions 1866-1878
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/21/7B – Annual Revisions 1879-1893
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/21/7C – Annual Revisions 1894-1908
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/21/7D – Annual Revisions 1909-1920
10. PRONI VAL/12/B/21/7E – Annual Revisions 1920-1929
11. PRONI Wills Catalogue – (1869)
12. Ordnance Survey Memoirs, Co. Down III, Vol. 12
13. Census of Ireland 1901 / 1911
14. First Survey Record (1979)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Lurganville House is an asymmetrical three-bay two-storey detached galleted rubble stone house with outbuildings, originally a one-and-a-half storey dwelling (probably thatched) dating from the late eighteenth-century but revised and remodelled c.1850. Located north of Lurganville Road on the outskirts of Moira. Restored in the late 20th century, the windows have been replaced with uPVC and the building has been re-roofed. The house and outbuildings retain an early appearance and form a historically intact group in an unspoiled rural setting with the original boundary wall and wrought-iron gate. Although an interesting medium–sized rural farmstead, as it has been significantly altered both externally and internally, it does not meet the criteria for listing.