Lisnabrague Lodge, Scarva, Co Down, BT63 6NR

Lisnabrague Lodge, formerly known as Union Lodge, is an asymmetrical two-storey, four-bay detached house built around 1770, with 19th-century alterations and extensions. It sits over a semi-basement and retains an attached farmyard. The building continues in use as a private dwelling.

The plan is rectangular, with two-storey projecting bays to the east and a 19th-century return to the north. The roof is pitched natural slate with angled ridge tiles and raised masonry verges, and the chimnestacks are rectangular, roughcast rendered. Rainwater goods are uPVC. The external walls are roughcast render with quoins, and the rear is partially clad in slate. Windows throughout are uPVC replacements set in smooth rendered surrounds with masonry sills, with metal casements to the return.

The principal elevation faces west and is five openings wide on each floor. To the right of centre at ground floor level is a recessed entrance set within an elliptical-arched opening, accessed by a single step. The doorway comprises a raised-and-fielded ten-panel timber door surmounted by a fanlight with cusped and pointed glazing. The sidelights are flanked by three-quarter engaged Ionic columns on pedestals and are surmounted by an entablature. The north gable is blank and is abutted on the left by a return.

The east, rear elevation is flanked by two two-storey hip-roofed returns: one to the left and one to the right, the latter with its ridge line running parallel to the main block. The central bay has a window at ground floor right and first floor left, with the first-floor walling clad in natural slate. The left return has a uPVC replacement Venetian window to the right of the first floor, with the first-floor walling partly clad in natural slate. The left cheek of this return has two windows to the first floor (boarded), a uPVC window to ground floor right, and a replacement door to ground floor left, with the ground floor walling partly clad in natural slate; steps at the left descend to the basement. The right cheek was not viewed. The right return has a window to the first floor left, a modern uPVC door with sidelights to ground floor left, and two narrow windows to ground floor right, with the first-floor walling partly clad in natural slate; the left cheek is blank, and the right cheek abuts the north range. The south gable has a window to ground floor and first floor right.

The house is set on a large, mature site overlooking Lough Shark, approached via a long tree-lined avenue from Bann Road. To the rear is a variety of two-storey outbuildings arranged around a central yard; those to the south have been fully refurbished and are now used as accommodation. A walled garden to the south is lawned with a variety of mature trees and is bounded by a tall rubble stone wall. A modern single-storey bungalow and a variety of modern agricultural sheds lie to the east. The entrance to the site is to the south and comprises a rubble stone boundary wall with ashlar gate piers with moulded caps. Although the outbuildings have been modified and refurbished, the surviving courtyard arrangement adds to the historic interest of the site. The insertion of modern uPVC windows and other modifications has compromised the building's character to some degree, but the impression of a prosperous farmhouse survives.

Lisnabrague Lodge has a well-documented history stretching back to its construction. It appears on Taylor and Skinner's 1777 map of the Irish road network, captioned as Union Lodge and shown as the residence of Dawson Esq. The Dawsons were relatives of the linen-producing Christy family, who are credited with bringing linen production to the Banbridge area. William Dawson formed a partnership with John and Joseph Christy in the Christy and Dawson bleachworks at Millpark and Springvale, active in the early 19th century. The Dawson family later moved to Elmfield House.

Towards the end of the 18th century the house changed hands, and by 1786 it is recorded as the seat of Mr Fivey in the Georgian travel guide The Post-Chaise Companion, which places it close to Scarva House. Captain William Fivey was a Volunteer; Aghaderg parish church preserves colours owned by Fivey and presented to the Loughbrickland Loyalists Corps of Volunteers when he resigned his command in 1781. By the time of the United Irish rebellion the occupant was John Fivey. In March 1797, Fivey accommodated military forces at Union Lodge and assisted them in searching nearby houses for arms and ammunition. A letter from Lord Downshire to John Reilly of Scarva survives in which Downshire enquires whether he thinks "Fivey's house [is] strong enough to protect the army that are lodged with him in case of any attack being made upon it."

By 1828 the house was occupied by a second William Fivey, who appeared that April in the Belfast Newsletter as the victim of a burglary. The burglars entered through a pantry window and stole two silver goblets, a silver tun-dish, three glass decanters, and a writing desk containing £7 and some silver coins. Suspects were apprehended and brought to trial, having told witnesses that one of the decanters had been hidden in "the race to Mr Fivey's mill," but were subsequently acquitted.

The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834 shows the house captioned as Union Lodge, with ranges of outbuildings arranged around a rear courtyard — a plan form broadly similar to that which survives today. The outbuildings originally extended further forwards than they do now and had been partly demolished or altered by the time of the second edition map in 1860. The house overlooks Lough Shark, with formal gardens adjoining the buildings to both north and south. A corn mill and kiln associated with a mill race are shown to the south of Union Lodge. The mill, mansion, and the Fivey family are mentioned several times in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs. Fivey is noted as the most extensive resident proprietor after Reilly of Scarva. An ancestor, also William Fivey, is said to have drained nearby Loughadian Lake around 1750, suggesting the family had been resident in the area from at least that date. The water wheel at the corn mill is recorded as having been built in 1800; it is 14 feet in diameter, the machinery is entirely of wood, and there is one pair of stones.

The Townland Valuation of 1828 to 1840 lists the buildings as a house and offices valued at £28 13s. Dimensions are recorded for the house and two returns, together with two two-storey slated outbuildings and a cellar.

In 1851 a personal tragedy befell the Fivey family when William Fivey, described as a gentleman of independent means, accompanied his niece and a young woman named Margaret Anne Minnis — with whom he had had a child and to whom he was about to be married — to a hotel in Dublin, where Minnis subsequently fell or jumped from a window and was killed, as reported in the Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser.

By the time of Griffith's Valuation of 1858 to 1864, Union Lodge was the home of medical doctor William Saunderson and was valued as a house, offices, corn mill, kiln and land, with buildings valued at £60. The property stood in over 177 acres. In 1885 the house was taken over by Andrew McElvaine and the valuation was reduced to £40 5s, because the corn mill and kiln were removed from the main valuation and listed separately at £16. The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1860 shows that a second corn mill, kiln and mill pond had been constructed to the north of the first, and both mill complexes are captioned. By 1891 the valuation had been further reduced to £35 5s, though no reason is given; this may have been the result of an appeal.

The 1901 census records Scottish-born Andrew McElvaine, farmer and land valuer, in residence with his wife and four children, together with three servants: a cook, a nurse, and a cattle man and farm servant. The house is recorded as first class, with thirteen rooms and seventeen outbuildings including two stables and three cow houses. By 1911 McElvaine was head of a family with seven surviving children, one of whom was not at home. The household employed a governess, a general domestic, and a farm servant from County Louth. The McElvaines remained in the house until 1938, when it was taken over by Joseph Johnston.

In 1934, under the First General Revaluation, the house was assessed at £32 10s, with ancillary agricultural buildings valued at £12 5s. The house was described at this time as a "large residence, substantially built and in fair condition," comprising six bedrooms, three reception rooms, a bathroom and combined WC, a kitchen, pantry and scullery.

In 1949 the house became the home of Major-General F. G. Beaumont-Nesbitt (1893–1971), who appears to have renamed it Lisnabrague Lodge; it is shown under this name on the map edition dating from the 1960s and 1970s. Major-General Beaumont-Nesbitt had an Anglo-Irish background and was the son of E. J. D. Beaumont-Nesbitt of Tuberdaly, County Offaly. His military career in the Grenadier Guards was distinguished and he was decorated with the Military Cross. He was also awarded the CBE and CVO. Beaumont-Nesbitt served as Director of Military Intelligence after the outbreak of the Second World War from 1939 to 1940, and then served on the General Staff of the British Army in Washington DC and in the Middle East, North Africa and Italy between 1941 and 1945. He was ADC to King George VI from 1944 to 1945 and retired at the end of the war, later becoming Gentleman Usher to the Queen from 1959 to 1967. A memoir covering his early life and career, including his time at Eton and Sandhurst and his experiences in France during the First World War, is held at the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King's College London.

In 1951, two of the outbuildings to the south of the main house were remodelled into dwellings, providing accommodation for Beaumont-Nesbitt's land steward and another employee. These were valued at £13 10s and £11 respectively, the former being a three-bedroom parlour house and the latter a smaller two-bedroom house.

The garden at Lisnabrague Lodge is featured in the Parks and Gardens UK database, where the site is described as "denuded, with a lime avenue and a walled garden with garden house."