Outbuildings, 46 Lisnacroppan Road, Edengarry, Rathfiland, Banbridge, Co Down, BT32 5DA

These are the outbuildings associated with Knock House, a well-appointed two-storey Georgian farmhouse in the townland of Edenagary. The farmhouse itself dates from before 1833, and the outbuildings were constructed in phases across the 19th century. Together they form a well-preserved and largely intact example of a medium-sized 19th-century farm complex, set on the west side of Lisnacroppan Road.

The group consists of three ranges arranged around a farmyard, with Knock House bounding the yard to the south. The yard was formerly entered through a pair of cast-iron gates, which have since been removed. A modern secondary farmyard lies to the rear of the site.

Outbuilding 1

This two-storey building is attached to the farmhouse, set on axis with it but under a separate roof. It has a pitched natural slate roof with clipped verges and cast-iron rainwater goods. The walls are exposed rubble stone laid to rough courses, with some snecking and roughly dressed quoins. Timber-sheeted openings have segmental brick relieving arches over them, with brick jambs and projecting cills in brick and granite.

The south elevation is roughcast and blank, extending the principal elevation of the house. The west gable has a window — now infilled with metal — to the ground floor, and two windows to the loft level. There are ghost marks at low level indicating a former monopitched structure once attached here. The north elevation has a pair of coach doors to the left, with a brick tympanum, and two elliptical-headed openings to the right. At loft level there are two small openings to the left and a door accessed by a steel stair to the right.

North Range

The north range is two storeys, running east to west and bounding the north side of the yard. It has a pitched natural slate roof with tiled skews and ridge, no chimneystacks, and cast-iron rainwater goods carried on projected brick eaves. The walling is of particular quality: granite and sandstone rubble laid to rough courses in places, with snecking in granite and a small number of slate slips inserted near ground level. The quoins are large, roughly dressed granite fieldstones. All openings are timber-sheeted with brick dressings, and doors have granite plinth blocks and thresholds.

The south, yard-facing elevation has several openings arranged asymmetrically. Reading from left to right: a door opening at the far left; a 1/1 sash window offset slightly to the left of centre; then, offset to the right of centre, a stable door with a sheeted loft opening above it and a timber-framed window opening to its right; and at the far right, a segmental-headed double door with a fixed sheeted tympanum alongside a square-headed pair of cart doors. Both gables are blank.

The north elevation has a large pair of corrugated tin sliding doors to the right side. Running from centre to left is a series of four small square openings — some timber-framed, some infilled with painted corrugated tin — terminating in a 1/1 sash at the far left. There is a single loading door to the upper level, left of centre. A monolithic roughly dressed stone gate pier stands at the left side.

East Range

The east range is single storey with a monopitched roof that projects to the right on the yard-facing side. The yard-facing west elevation is cement rendered and has two timber-sheeted doors, with modern garage doors and a window to the projecting section. Both ends are blank, with the north end covered in scratch-coat cement render. The road-facing east elevation is blank rubble stone with fieldstone quoins and vestiges of lime render to the left side. This range has been raised by two courses of cement block.

Historical Background

Knock House and the north range — shown as a one-and-a-half-storey barn on the first edition Ordnance Survey map — were both in existence by 1833. Neither the east range along Lisnacroppan Road nor the two-storey outbuilding abutting the west gable of the house had yet been built at that date. By the time of the second edition Ordnance Survey map (1853), an additional outbuilding had appeared to the north-west of the house; this continued to be shown on the fourth edition (completed 1918) but has since been replaced by a modern corrugated-iron farm building.

In 1862, Griffith's Valuation recorded Robert McDowell, a local farmer, as the occupant. He leased the property from John S. Crawford, a landowner based in Crawfordsburn who held 5,748 acres in the area. The house and its outbuildings were valued at £10 at that date. The Townland Valuation of around 1830 did not record McDowell by name, and while only four houses in the townland were valued above the minimum £3, the corresponding map for that valuation is missing, making it impossible to confirm whether Knock House was among them. The property was not referred to by the name Knock House until the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1903.

By 1864 Robert McDowell had either died or vacated the site, and his relative Joseph McDowell — likely his son — became occupant. In 1871 Joseph's nephew Robert James McDowell was recorded as joint occupant, and in 1873 the pair carried out a series of alterations. During this period they added the current north-west outbuilding to the west gable of the house and erected the eastern single-storey outbuilding along Lisnacroppan Road. These additions first appear on the 1903 Ordnance Survey map and resulted in the value of the farm rising to £14, at which it remained until the end of the Annual Revisions in 1929.

Joseph McDowell continued to live at the farm until his death in 1901, at which point sole occupation passed to Robert James McDowell. By this time McDowell was recorded in the Ulster Town Directories as a Justice of the Peace as well as a farmer. The 1901 Census records that the farm was extensive, possessing two stables, two cow houses, three calf houses, two piggeries, a fowl house, and a barn within the outbuildings. By 1918 a further outbuilding to the north-west of the site had been constructed, but this, along with an earlier office building recorded by 1862, has since been replaced by the modern corrugated-iron barn. Robert James McDowell remained at Knock House until his death in 1920, when the farm passed to Andrew Ray McDowell, an unknown relative. Andrew McDowell briefly occupied the house but had vacated by 1927, when Joseph McRoberts — the last occupant recorded in the Annual Revisions — took over the site.

Knock House was listed in 1977, but its outbuildings were not individually listed until 1988. The north range and the single-storey east range along Lisnacroppan Road both survive, though the two outbuildings formerly situated to the north-west of the site were replaced by the current modern corrugated-iron barn at some point after the 1973 Ordnance Survey map.