Millpark House, 27 Springvale Road, Tullylish, Lawrencetown, County Down, BT63 6EB

Millpark House is a vacant three-bay, two-storey house with associated outbuildings, built around 1780, with later extensions added in 1876 and again around 1940. It stands on a large wooded site on the north side of Springvale Road in Lawrencetown, and is now derelict.

The house has a cruciform plan comprising four intersecting bays, with a two-storey extension to the rear and a single-storey lean-to porch. The roof is hipped and cruciform in form, covered in natural slate with leaded hips, and is served by rendered chimneystacks and uPVC rainwater goods. External walls are finished in roughcast render. Windows throughout are a variety of timber sliding sash with exposed boxes and projecting sills.

The principal elevation faces north and is entirely concealed by vegetation. The east elevation is partially concealed by vegetation, with a two-over-four sash window to the first floor centre and a four-over-four sash to the ground floor left. The south, rear elevation shows the south intersecting bay at its centre, with bipartite windows to both ground and first floors; to the left is the two-storey extension with a ground floor window; to the right is the lean-to porch, which has a window and opens to the east. The west elevation was not viewed at the time of survey.

The house is set within a large wooded site that was formerly a bleachworks, approached by a long tree-lined entrance from Springvale Road. A laneway leads to a yard to the east, where there is a rubblestone stable block and a two-storey barn, both with timber-sheeted half-doors and corrugated tin roofs. A garden to the east is enclosed by a rubble stone wall with red-brick coping. To the south is a large paddock bounded by a rubble stone boundary wall with a metal latch gate.

The house has considerable historical associations with the linen industry. It was advertised in the Belfast Newsletter of 8th January 1782 as a newly built house with 50 acres of land and a bleachworks capable of finishing 8,000 pieces of linen a year. It had belonged to the late Thomas Christy, a member of one of the oldest linen families in the Banbridge area. The Christys have been credited with the introduction of linen bleaching on the River Bann at Moyallon in the late 17th century. The property is shown, captioned as 'Mill Park', on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833, with associated bleach mills to the north-west and a large expanse of bleach greens surrounding it. 'Spring Vale' house and its bleach mills are shown close by to the east.

The roughly cruciform plan of the house corresponds to the early Georgian core of the building, which was subsequently modified as tastes changed over the 19th and 20th centuries. The Townland Valuation of 1828–40 records the occupier as John Christy, with the house, offices and bleach mills valued at £59 12s. Dimensions are recorded for the house, its return and porch, and for outbuildings including a coach house and fowl house. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1834 further enumerate Christy's linen works, which comprised three wheels and a range of rubbing boards, wash mills and beetling engines. Records show that Christy bleached around 15,000 pieces of linen in 1839. According to Rankin, John Christy continued to bleach at Mill Park after the Uprichards bought Springvale around 1830, and at the entrance to the property stands a gate screen referred to locally as 'Christy's gates'.

The Belfast Newsletter of 17th October 1851 carries an advertisement for the sale by auction of the Mill Park bleach green, described as 'well supplied with water throughout the driest season and capable of doing a large business'. The mills, dwelling house, garden, offices and workmen's houses, situated in 83 acres, were held under lease in perpetuity at an annual rent of £100 4s 9d. The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1860 shows that an extension, still present, had been added to the south-west corner of the building by that date. The former bleach mill associated with the property had fallen out of use by this time, and Griffith's Valuation describes it as 'dilapidated'. Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 records that both Springvale and Mill Park bleachworks had by then become the property of William Uprichard, with the house, offices and garden at Mill Park let to John Mathers at a valuation of £12, with a further £1 10s placed on the acre of ground in which the house stood. William Uprichard of Bannvale was the son of James Uprichard, who, with his brothers, had founded the company J T & H Uprichard by purchasing the Springvale bleachworks shortly after 1830.

From this point, Mill Park House became associated with the bleachworks at Springvale. The house was taken over in 1876 by Henry Albert Uprichard, William's son, who, according to Rankin, had married Emily Green in the mid-1870s and subsequently lived at Lawrencetown House and later at Elmfield. Henry Albert appears to have made improvements at Mill Park during his short stay there, and the valuation was raised to £17 10s in 1876. The occupier is thereafter listed as William Uprichard until his death in 1884; however, as William Uprichard was living at Bannvale during this period, the house was likely inhabited by an employee. After Uprichard's death the house passed to David McWilliam, who described himself in the 1901 census as the manager of the bleach green. McWilliam was an unmarried man of 54 who employed a cook and housekeeper from County Tyrone. The house then passed to Adam Coates, a foreman bleacher, who brought his large family to Mill Park; he and his Belfast-born wife listed seven children aged between 9 and 22 in the 1911 census. Subsequent occupiers included Archibald McCormick in 1919, James C. Torrens in 1944 and Hugh Service in 1947, all of whom were likely employed at the Springvale bleachworks.

The First General Revaluation of the early 1930s records the internal accommodation in some detail. On the ground floor were a square hall, two reception rooms — one with a large bay — a large kitchen, scullery, pantry and back stairs leading to a servants' room. On the upper floor were a small servants' room over the kitchen (not in use by this time), a landing, three 'fairly good' bedrooms, and a bathroom with an enclosed bath and WC, though without a hot water supply. A plan and dimensions recorded at this time show the house with the Victorian extension to the south-west and a scullery and outbuildings to the east. Electric light was supplied from the mill, and the house was held rent-free 'by virtue of office at mill'.

In 1951 Mill Park was taken over by Henry Albert Uprichard's grandson, also named Henry Albert. According to Rankin, Henry Albert had been left Lawrencetown House on the death of his father, but he, his mother Nancy and their butler Bobby Dawson chose to live at Mill Park, where Henry and his brother attempted to keep the bleachworks going. With the linen industry in decline, Springvale closed in 1955. A 20th-century modification to the western façade dates from this period. The house was last inhabited approximately 25 years before the time of survey and has since fallen into disrepair.