Annaclone House, 5 Church Road, Lisnasliggan, Banbridge, Co Down, BT32 5AU

Annaclone House is a symmetrical two-storey, three-bay, Georgian-style double-pile former rectory, built in 1818 with part of the rear dating from around 1860. It sits at the corner of a sharp bend in Church Road, north of the village of Annaclone, directly opposite the listed Christ Church, with which it shares group value. The house retains much of its historic fabric and is a good example of a building that has evolved over time to meet the changing needs of its occupants. It continues to be used as a private dwelling and was largely refurbished in 1996.

EXTERIOR

The principal elevation faces south and is symmetrically arranged. The walling is smooth rendered throughout. The roof is pitched and clad in natural slate with clay ridge tiles, masonry skews, cast-iron rainwater goods, and smooth rendered chimneystacks topped with octagonal moulded pots.

The entrance doorway is centrally positioned and comprises a timber door with two bolection-moulded lower panels and nine fixed panes to the upper portion. It is flanked on each side by three-pane sidelights with cills, and is surmounted by a spoked fanlight set into an elliptical opening with panelled pilasters and a replaced moulded archivolt. On either side of the doorway are tripartite 6-over-6 sliding sash windows. The first floor has three equally spaced 3-over-3 sliding sash windows.

The right gable has a 6-over-9 timber sliding sash window to the ground floor left, with a 6-over-6 timber sliding sash window directly above. The left gable features a double-height round-headed 9-over-9 timber sliding sash landing window to the right; a diminished-in-scale 3-over-3 window right of centre at first floor; a bipartite 4-over-4 window to the ground floor left; and a diminished-in-height 6-over-6 first floor window above that.

The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged. To the right is a single-storey hipped-roof addition with a bipartite 4-over-2 window to the right cheek; the left cheek has a 6-over-3 window to the right of a timber-glazed door with sidelight. To the left of centre is a replacement panelled door with single and bipartite 4-over-4 windows to its right, and a single 6-over-6 window at first floor level right of centre. The right gable of the rear is double-pile. It features an original panelled door with a square-headed overlight having geometric glazing and moulded surrounds, set to the left, with a single 6-over-6 window to the right, and two asymmetrical 6-over-6 windows at first floor level. The left gable is blank.

All windows have masonry cills and are of timber construction throughout.

SETTING

The house is accessed from the road via a sweeping, hedge-lined concrete driveway. To the south, trees screen the front elevation. To the side and rear are yards containing a roughcast rendered outbuilding with replacement corrugated metal roofing, painted timber-sheeted doors, and sash windows. Adjacent to the rear elevation stands a cast-iron water pump with a cow-tail handle, manufactured by Stevenson. Further single-storey rubble masonry outbuildings lie to the north, featuring brick surrounds and pitched natural slate roofing. A small garden addresses the front of the house, and some historic rubble walling survives to the west.

HISTORY

Annaclone House was originally the Glebe House of Annaclone Parish. The parish church was reconstructed in 1808 and was located in the nearby townland of Ardbrin; in 1860 the current Christ Church was constructed directly opposite the Glebe House on the south side of Church Road. In the 1830s, the majority of the population in Annaclone Parish were Presbyterian and Roman Catholic, with only one twenty-fifth of the people belonging to the Established Church, according to the Ordnance Survey Memoirs. Nevertheless the parish church was described as the principal public building in the area, and the parish possessed an extensive Glebe of around 124 Irish acres in the townland of Lisnasliggan. Both Lewis's Topographical Dictionary and the Ordnance Survey Memoirs record that the Glebe land was gifted to the Parish by the Marquis of Downshire, and that in 1818 the house and offices were constructed on the site at a cost of £900.

The first edition of the Ordnance Survey maps (1833) depicts the house as an L-shaped building on the current site, with two small outbuildings to its north. By 1837, the Ordnance Survey Memoirs noted that the Reverend Michael Sampson resided at the Glebe House, though both the Townland Valuation and Griffith's Valuation record that the Reverend Robert Forde lived at the site in around 1830 and 1862 respectively. The Townland Valuation notes that the Church owned the Glebe Land outright and that the house and offices were valued at £10 13s.

By 1859, construction of the new Christ Church opposite was underway. The second edition of the Ordnance Survey maps (1859) shows that the rear block of the Glebe's double-pile had been constructed, and that an L-shaped block of outbuildings had been built between the Glebe House and its original northern outbuildings between 1833 and 1859. This construction work increased the value of the Glebe to £22 by the time of Griffith's Valuation in 1862.

The Reverend Robert Forde continued to reside at the Glebe House until around 1876, when occupation passed to the Reverend Charles Warring, the new incumbent of Christ Church. Over the following three decades the house was home to a succession of incumbent ministers. In 1902, the Parish of Annaclone was grouped with Magherally Parish, which possessed its own rectory, and from that point the rectory at Lisnasliggan was let by representatives of the Church Body to private occupants. The 1901 Census records that the last clergyman to occupy the property was the Reverend John Scanlon, and describes it as a first-class dwelling of eleven rooms, with a stable, cow house, two piggeries, two fowl houses, and a barn among its outbuildings.

The third edition of the Ordnance Survey map first names the site as "Annaclone House" in 1902–03, coinciding with its transition to private occupation. By 1904, William Simmons, a National School Teacher, had taken possession of the house, at which time its rateable value fell considerably to £13. The 1911 Census records Simmons (aged 39, Church of Ireland) residing there with his wife Elizabeth and their large family. William Simmons continued to live at Annaclone House until his death in 1925; his widow Elizabeth remained at the property until at least the end of the Annual Revisions in 1929. The house was listed in 1977 and remains in private use.