Lisnabrague House, 40 Bann Road, Poyntzpass, Co Down, BT63 6NR

Lisnabrague House is a symmetrical three-bay two-storey detached farmhouse with outbuildings, built around 1840 and incorporating as a rear return an earlier vernacular structure dating from before 1834. It is located north of Bann Road near Loughbrickland, south of Scarva, in a rural landscape that has retained its agricultural character since the first ordnance survey.

The building has a rectangular plan with an elongated single-storey extension to the rear. The pitched natural slate roof features raised masonry verges and replacement chimneystacks to each gable. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods are mounted on a projecting eaves course with cast-iron hopper. The walling is painted smooth render, with roughcast render to the return. Windows throughout are six-over-six timber sliding sash with projecting granite sills.

The principal south-east elevation is three openings wide to each floor. At ground floor centre is a four-panelled timber door set within an elliptical-arched recess flanked by fluted Ionic columns and surmounted by a timber spider-web fanlight. The south-west gable contains a six-over-six window to the left at ground floor level. The north-west rear elevation was partially concealed at survey. This elevation is abutted left of centre by a single-storey return—the earlier vernacular structure from before 1834—which has a six-over-six window to the first and ground floor to the left. The return features modern timber casement windows flanking a slightly projecting porch containing a modern panelled-and-glazed timber door with side light. To the right are access to a store room and timber-sheeted double-leaf doors to a garage. A larger abutment at the far right has a timber-sheeted door. The north-east gable is blank.

The setting includes a raised lawned garden to the front with overgrown shrubbery and mature trees, enclosed by an iron pedestrian gate to the north-east of the house and a roughcast render wall with saddleback coping stones. Simple granite piers with pointed caps support original metal gates to the south. Farmland to the south is bounded by mature hedgerow and trees. The house is visible from the main road and accessed via a laneway to the east marked by a single slender granite gate pier. The lane leads to a rear yard containing a variety of outbuildings, including a two-storey rubble stone barn to the north with timber-sheeted openings.

The original proportions and architectural detailing are largely intact, though there has been significant loss of historic fabric. The character of the farmyard has been degraded over the years through modifications to the associated outbuildings. The building represents a fair example of a mid-nineteenth-century middle-sized farmhouse with small-holding, a type that is disappearing from the area.

Historically, Lisnabrague is first mentioned in connection with the Shannon family around the turn into the nineteenth century. Samuel Shannon, who died in 1817, was one of the inspectors appointed under a relief scheme to mitigate distress among the poor occasioned by high provisions prices in March 1800. A rectangular structure corresponding to the return of the present building is shown on the first edition ordnance survey map of 1834, together with an outbuilding forming a linear range with the house. This structure was of a single-storey, vernacular type, considered at the time to be below the valuation threshold (usually £3) for the levying of county cess, and therefore a relatively simple rural dwelling.

By the time of Griffith's Valuation (1856–64), a new house had been built on the site, which is shown on the second edition ordnance survey map of 1860. The former single-storey dwelling then formed a return to the house. The occupier was John Shannon, who leased the building from Alexander J R Stewart. The property comprised a house, offices and over 38 acres of land, with buildings valued at £11. John Shannon died around 1867 and the house passed to Eliza Shannon in 1871, with the valuation reduced to £11 the same year, possibly as a result of an appeal. A new outbuilding was added in 1885—a two-storey barn—which is shown on the 1903 map edition. The house continued in the Shannon family for some years, passing to Joseph Shannon in 1889. The 1901 census records him as a forty-year-old farmer living with his wife and five children aged between three and fourteen, the older four still at school. The house was deemed to be of the second class, containing nine rooms and ten outbuildings including a stable, cow house and two piggeries.

By 1909 the house had been taken over by George McClements and shortly afterwards, in 1910, by Joseph Moorhead. The 1911 census shows Joseph Moorhead as head of the family, living with his wife, six children—the oldest of whom, at twenty-three, was working as a dressmaker—and a farm servant of seventeen. In 1922 Joseph Moorhead became the owner in fee under land purchase legislation. He died in 1933 and the farm passed to his widow Eliza Jane and then to his sons Robert and Joseph in 1938. In the early 1930s the house was revalued at £7 15 shillings and £3 10 shillings for agricultural buildings. It was described at this time as a farmhouse "not in good condition and inclined to be wet", comprising four bedrooms, two reception rooms, a kitchen, pantries and a scullery. By 1941 Joseph Moorhead was the sole occupier. The house remains in use as a dwelling.