Glen House, 212 Crawfordsburn Road, Ballymullan, Crawfordsburn, Bangor, County Down, BT19 1HY

Glen House, 212 Crawfordsburn Road, Ballymullan, Crawfordsburn

Glen House is a substantial double-pile, two-storey, nine-bay dwelling with origins predating 1830, thought by architectural historian M. Patton to date from around 1820. It was probably built for William S. Crawford, whose family — the Sharman Crawfords — were the principal landowners of the area. The house represents a relatively early domestic survival in Crawfordsburn and retains generally early Georgian characteristics and proportions across its main portion, despite a number of alterations over time.

Architecture and Exterior

The building follows an oblong plan with various single- and two-storey projected bays and a subservient two-storey block on the north-west gable. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with clay ridge tiles. There are tall rough-cast rendered chimney stacks with black-painted caps and various clay pots. Rainwater goods are uPVC replacements. External walls are rough-cast rendered with a blank painted plinth. Windows are a mix of 2/2 (with vertical glazing bars) and 1/1 timber sliding box sash types, set in rectangular masonry cills. The front door is a timber panelled segmental-arched door with glazed upper panels and brass ironmongery, sheltered by a pitched timber canopy on plain brackets.

The principal elevation faces west and is asymmetrically arranged across nine bays. The six bays to the right include a two-storey hipped projected bay right of centre, containing the front entrance at ground floor with a single first-floor window above; three uniformly arranged ground- and first-floor windows to the left; and a flat-roofed single-storey bowed projecting bay with fixed and casement windows to the right, with two first-floor windows above. The three bays further right are abutted by a large single-storey conservatory at ground-floor level, with one window to the left and three uniformly arranged first-floor windows above. The left gable is abutted by an asymmetrical two-storey subservient block with a two-storey return. The west face of this block has a secondary entrance with a slightly projecting bay to the right and a wall-headed dormer window.

The north gable has three ground-floor and two first-floor windows, incorporating a single ground-floor window on the west face of the rear return. The gabled east face of the return has a door with a window to its right and a single first-floor window above. The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged, with a two-storey canted bay at the far left featuring margin-paned glazing on all faces. To the right of this is a round-arched landing window. Seven ground- and first-floor windows continue to the right. The right double-pile gable is asymmetrically arranged and is abutted at ground-floor right by a single-storey flat-roofed conservatory with two first-floor windows above. The left gable has single ground- and first-floor windows.

Historical Development

The house appears uncaptioned on the first-edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833, already occupying substantially the same plan form as today, and shown with two further ranges to the north, one of which appears to have survived. On the second-edition OS map of 1858, the house is captioned 'Glen Cottage', and one of those northerly ranges had by then been demolished.

Griffith's Valuation records the occupier as William Sharman Crawford, who leased the property from John Sharman Crawford of Crawfordsburn House — William was probably a brother or nephew of John. The house was valued at £16 at this time, but by its first appearance in the Annual Revisions, this had risen to £43 and subsequently to £55, indicating substantial improvements or additions made between around 1860 and 1870. By the time of the 1901 Ordnance Survey map, the increased stature of the house was reflected in a change of name to 'Glen House'. The surviving outbuilding to the north — a stable block and coachman's house — bears the date 1868 and was evidently remodelled at the same period.

Arthur S. Crawford, younger brother of John, became the occupier in 1870 and was also noted as the occupier of Glendore House to the east. By 1873, the valuation had been further increased to £60 as the result of additional improvements, and in that same year Arthur Sharman Crawford removed to Ballymenoch, auctioning off the contents of what was then still referred to as Glen Cottage, together with those of Glendore, as reported in the Belfast Newsletter.

In the closing decades of the 19th century, the house was let to a succession of wealthy tenants. In 1873, David Ker, Deputy Lieutenant, Justice of the Peace, and former Member of Parliament for County Down and Downpatrick, died at the house, which was then the residence of his daughter, Mrs J. Perceval Maxwell, of the prominent County Down family, as recorded in the Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser. By 1883, the occupier was William A. Moreland. In 1897, the house was advertised to let in the Belfast Newsletter, described as being within easy distance of Helen's Bay Station, with good stabling and coachhouse accommodation, a large walled garden, and fine vineries and hothouses.

By 1900, the house was occupied by James Craig, a linen manufacturer with the firm McCrum, Watson & Mercer Ltd of Linenhall Street, Belfast. At the time of the 1901 census he was resident with his English cook. James Craig died in 1903 in New York at the age of 43, leaving his wife a considerable sum of money. The Annual Revisions record that the house was subsequently taken on by Robert W. Lindsay, who was in the drapery trade, along with his wife and young son. The 1911 census shows that a staff of four — a coachman, parlourmaid, housemaid, and cook — were also resident, most likely in the service block to the north. The Lindsay family remained in the house until at least 1923.

Patton records that the main house and coachman's quarters are now separately occupied, with the coachman's house having taken the name 'Glen Cottage'.

Setting

The house is situated in its own grounds, accessed via a modern gate fixed to white-rendered piers and abutted by a perimeter rubble masonry wall. A gravel driveway leads to the front door and continues to the rear. There are large gardens with outbuildings and a greenhouse — possibly part of a former walled garden — to the east, and converted outbuildings to the north. The house is located west off Main Street, to the east of Crawfordsburn village centre, in an area that has remained relatively undeveloped until recent times, and sits within the Crawfordsburn Area of Village Character.