26 Clanrolla Road, Clanrolla, Craigavon, County Armagh, BT63 5SS

A two-storey farmhouse of circa 1840–50 in the Georgian vernacular style, with a single-storey return which probably represents an earlier dwelling. The building is a good example of a mid-19th-century farmhouse with formal pretensions, though its character has been compromised by unsuitable replacement window frames and artificial roof slates.

The property sits on the south side of a quiet country road roughly one mile west of Craigavon. The house is L-shaped in plan, with the main gabled front block facing west. Outbuildings occupy the east and north-east, with a spacious garden to the west.

The west-facing front of the main block follows a typical three-openings-wide Georgian arrangement. At ground floor centre is the main entrance: a panelled timber door with three-quarter-length sidelights featuring decorative tracery, topped by a large elliptical-arched fanlight with spoke tracery. A single concrete step leads to the door. To the left is a flat-arched window opening with painted stone cill, painted smooth render surround, and a replacement top-hung timber frame made to resemble a 6/6 Georgian-paned sash. An identical window sits to the right of the entrance, with three further windows to the first floor. The north gable contains a window at ground floor left and first floor left, both matching the front style. The south gable is blank.

The single-storey return abuts the right-hand (north) half of the rear face of the main block. To its left are windows to each floor, both as the front style but without surround to the upper opening. A very small ventilator-like opening sits to the right of the ground floor window, close to the return's junction with the main block. On the north face of the return stands a small lean-to porch at centre-left, with a modern partly-glazed timber door (now the de facto entrance). To its left is a window with concrete cill and replacement uPVC frame. To the right is a similar-sized window with concrete cill and replacement timber frame with casement and top-hung openers. The south face of the return has a very small low-level window at left with concrete cill and recent top-hung timber frame, and a larger window at right matching the north-face opening. An east-facing gable of the return accommodates a large single-storey lean-to, with a small lean-to porch on its south side, a small windowed opening to the right, a small windowed opening to the north face (with top-hung opener), and a timber-sheeted doorway further right.

The main facades are finished in roughcast and whitewashed; the south gable of the main block and the return gable are in unpainted cement render, and the lean-to in unpainted roughcast. The main block roof is covered in man-made tiles, as is the south side of the return, while the north side of the return has natural slate. Rendered chimneystack appear at each gable of the main block, with a brick stack on the return's ridge. The rainwater goods are mixed cast-iron and uPVC.

The outbuildings comprise a small grouping of single and two-storey gabled structures, mostly finished in render and brick, with portions in rubble and breeze block. Roofs are either slated, corrugated iron, or corrugated asbestos. These buildings show evidence of extensive alteration, with numerous large flat-arch doorways with sliding doors and windows (some possibly enlarged) with modern frames.

Ordnance Survey mapping of 1835 shows a small building that may correspond to the present return, with a larger building to the east on the site of the current outbuildings. The house as seen today appears on the revised map of 1860. The 1862 valuation records Frederick Ruddell as occupant; the quality letter suggests the front block was built less than twenty years earlier, placing it in the later 1840s. The valuers oddly describe the front block as two-and-a-half storeys and the return as two-storey, though no evidence suggests parts were subsequently lowered, implying these are errors.

Frederick Ruddell was succeeded by Robert James Ruddell in 1877, followed by Moses McMinn in 1878 and William Gilpin in 1880. Later valuations show James Wright (1885–90), John McCann (1890), and Lewis Spence (1891–93). Between 1882 and 1885 the Duke of Manchester appears as tenant, possibly not an error but an acknowledgement that the property may once have served an estate function, such as an agent's residence. In 1893 an ancestor of the present occupant leased the property, acquiring the freehold in 1913. The Craigavon Development Commission vested the house, presumably in the late 1960s, at which time most window frames were replaced and the front block roof recovered.