Lorne, 30 Station Road, Craigavad, Holywood, Co Down, BT18 0BP

Lorne is a large two-storey house with basement, built around 1870 in a loose Jacobethan style to designs by John Boyd of the Belfast architectural firm Boyd and Batt. It stands at the end of a short, tree-lined driveway off Station Road, on the north side of the main Belfast to Bangor road, elevated above its grounds and overlooking Belfast Lough towards Carrickfergus. The building takes a rectangular plan form with three conjoining two-storey returns, a four-stage circular tower, and extensive returns and outbuildings to the rear.

The roof is pitched natural slate with angled clay ridge tiles. A chamfered corbel course runs at eaves level, with cast-iron ogee-moulded gutters and circular downpipes below. The chimney stacks are brick and stone, topped with tall clay Tudor chimney pots. The external walls are yellow brick with irregular long-and-short sandstone quoins and a projected plinth. Windows throughout are timber one-over-one sliding sash, varying between square-headed and Tudor-arched openings, with sandstone label and hood mouldings over, moulded figured and foliated stops, chamfered jambs with matching heads, large chamfered cills, and long-and-short surrounds. The main entrance is a timber double door with paired long bolection-moulded panels and a fixed light over, set into a double scroll-moulded Tudor-arched opening with a label moulding and foliated spandrels.

The principal elevation faces northwest and is symmetrically arranged. A central Dutch gable breakfront features paired Tudor-arched windows at ground floor level, with a central buttress rising to a castellated oriel bay and a lancet-arched arrowloop above. To either side is a single-storey canted bay with square moulded parapet panels, a quatrefoil signature panel centred over, and paired sash windows at first floor.

The northeast elevation comprises the left gable of the front block, the east elevation of the triple-pile return, and the circular tower set into the re-entrant angle. The gable contains a window with label mould at each floor. The tower has triple Tudor-arched windows to its first and second stages; above eaves level, the third stage has diminished square-headed windows and the fourth has diminished Tudor-arched windows, with the whole surmounted by a balustrade with lancet piercings.

The rear southeast elevation is abutted by three conjoined, subservient two-storey returns, presenting a central Dutch gable flanked by two outer plain gables. The east face of the right return is dominated by a single-storey ashlar sandstone entrance porch set on a stepped stone platform. This porch has three Tudor-arched openings divided by semi-engaged octagonal piers rising to panelled and crocketed pinnacles, with a quatrefoil balustrade; the principal entrance is contained within the porch at the base of the tower, along with two ground-floor windows and two first-floor windows above. The gable ends of the central and left returns are abutted at ground floor by single-storey modern accommodation. The central Dutch gable is surmounted by a tall finial at its apex, with shaped saddle coping falling to the gable shoulders. It features triple square-headed windows with margin-paned stained glass, relieving arches, and a central blank oculus above.

The west face of the left return is abutted at ground floor by a large single-storey solarium to the right of the gable end. This is one of the finest conservatories in the Province: an arcaded glazed cast-iron frame arranged as a semicircular projection, with a glazed pitched roof rising to a finial, approached by stone steps embedded into the landscape with modern handrails. Single and bipartite windows sit at first floor above. The gable is further abutted by a lower two-storey block with dormers and subdued detailing, renovated around 2008. A two-storey steep-pitched hipped abutment and a castellated wall enclose the courtyard. The southwest gable of the main house matches the northeast.

Immediately to the rear of the main house is an enclosed former coach yard with associated outbuildings, accessed through large timber gates with wrought-iron strap hinges and surrounds. Much of the yard has been filled by modern single-storey administrative accommodation constructed in sympathetic materials. A former two-storey stable block and servants' accommodation survives, with a projecting single-storey timber-framed lean-to shelter on cast-iron columns. The external fabric of this two-storey accommodation matches that of the main house in detail, though it has been modernised internally with the installation of double-glazed replica sash windows throughout. Towards the southernmost part of the site there are further single-storey modern buildings. The site is accessed via modern timber gates fixed to stone piers with octagonal pinnacles, and contains mature plantings.

The house was built for Henry Campbell, a wealthy linen merchant who was a partner and director of the Mossley Mills — linen thread manufacturers — and of Messrs. Gunning and Campbell, flax spinners of North Howard Street. The Dublin Builder of June 1865 announced that "a large mansion in Tudor Style is in course of erection at Craigaveran near Holywood, for Henry Campbell Esq., the principal nature of which is a circular tower, on the top of which is a promenade commanding an extensive range of scenery of the Lough. The materials are brick and Scotch stone. Mr J Boyd of the firm of Boyd and Batt is the architect. Contractors, Mr James McCracken." The house first appears in the Annual Revision record as a house in progress, and was valued at £200 in 1866, when Campbell leased it from James McCutcheon. Campbell retired from business to live at Lorne with his sisters in 1873. The house was named after the traditional home of Clan Campbell in Scotland. He died at Lorne in 1889, leaving an endowment of £200,000 to found Campbell College at Belmont.

The next recorded occupier, from 1893, was Mary Langtry, who owned the house in fee. A valuer noted at the time: "A fine large house, well situated. Would let for £250+." In 1900 it was taken over by Alexander Mateer. Henry C Craig was the occupier from 1906, and the Craig family remained lessors, letting the house to James Gamble in 1914. A valuer's notebook from that year records a plan and dimensions for the building, including the house, conservatory, and extensive outbuildings. The house remained in the Gamble family, occupied by Jane Gamble from 1922. By 1933 the immediate lessor was the Governors of Campbell College.

A 1933 valuation survey recorded the accommodation in detail. The ground floor comprised an entrance hall, main hall, writing room, conservatory, sitting room, drawing room, dining room, three pantries, a cloakroom, WC, washbasin, kitchen, wood store, and laundry. The first floor contained six principal bedrooms, two maids' bedrooms, a lumber room, three bathrooms with washbasins, a shower and spray, a dressing room, a sitting room in the tower, and a WC. The second floor had an attic bedroom, box room, and sewing room in the tower, with a disused room on the third floor of the tower. The basement contained a heating room, wine cellar, and electric plant, with a seven horsepower gas engine used for lighting and driving a water pump. The valuer described it as "a fairly modern, substantially built premises... Secluded position but having a splendid unrestricted view over Lough." Part of the land was used for grazing, and the house was valued at £147, later raised to £160.

In 1946 the house was purchased by the Girl Guide Association, which received a 25% reduction in valuation, bringing it to £120. By 1950 it was recorded as a training centre for Guide Officers, with a charge during training of eight shillings per day, a capacity of approximately 40, and a staff of two supervisors and a caretaker and his wife. Lorne continues to serve as an activity centre for girl guides and has undergone refurbishment including the addition of modern single-storey extensions to the rear courtyard.