Whitefield College of the Bible, 117 Banbridge Road, Gilford, Co Down, BT63 6DL

Whitefield College of the Bible is a detached, three-bay two-storey rendered former house with an earlier core, remodelled around 1875 and subsequently extended with a multi-bay two-storey return added around 1910. The building is L-shaped on plan and set on an elevated site within landscaped grounds on the south side of Banbridge Road. It is now in educational use, having formerly been called Lawrencetown House.

The building features hipped natural slate roofs with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles, rolled lead hips and five decorative rendered profiled chimneystacks with octagonal clay pots. Moulded cast-iron guttering is supported on a moulded eaves course with round cast-iron downpipes having decorative iron brackets. The walls are rendered with ruled-and-lined finish, a projecting smooth rendered plinth course and continuous rendered sill course to each floor.

Window openings are square-headed with masonry sills and 1/1 timber sliding sash windows throughout. The front north-west entrance elevation comprises three bays and features a central single-storey entrance porch flanked to the left by a canted bay window (both with deep moulded cornices and parapet walls) and to the right by a window. At first floor, three slender window openings are positioned over the canted bay to the left, with a window to the centre and right. The entrance porch contains a pair of slender round-arched window openings to the front with a single moulded sill; the left cheek is blank while the right cheek has a square-headed door with moulded architrave surround and keystone. The door is original timber with two flat panels, bolection mouldings and Art Nouveau brass door furniture, opening onto a terracotta tiled step to the front gravel area.

The north-east elevation is abutted by a hip-roofed two-storey wing (with lower eaves) added around 1910, detailed as per the main house. To the southern re-entrant angle is a further hip-roofed two-storey block (with lower eaves) also detailed as per the main house. The north-east face of the two-storey wing has a wall to the left and a mono-pitched extension to the right. The right cheek has seven windows to each floor (first floor windows directly over, with the right two more closely spaced). The left cheek has a central window to each floor flanked by a window to the right of each floor and a fully glazed timber door to the left, partially abutted by the two-storey block.

The south-east elevation has a two-storey hip-roofed return positioned left of centre. The two-storey return comprises a central wall-headed chimney with two windows to the ground floor right and a window to the far left and far right at first floor. The left cheek has fully glazed timber double doors with a square-headed overlight and window over to the left, and a single-storey canted bay with three slender window openings over to the right. The right cheek has a wall-headed chimney and a central window to first floor, abutted to the left by the two-storey block. The two-storey block comprises a square-headed timber panelled and glazed door to the left with a window to the centre and right at ground floor and three windows to first floor, with a blocked-up window to the right. The right cheek has a window to first floor.

The south-west garden elevation features a single-storey canted bay with three slender windows over.

Setting

The property is set on an elevated landscaped site at a meander on the River Bann, accessed via a long gravel avenue to the north. A gravel yard to the north is enclosed to the west by a two-storey rubblestone outbuilding with half-hipped natural slate roof having cast-iron guttering to a redbrick eaves course, square-headed openings with brick relieving arches, granite sills and early sheeted timber doors and shutters. Abutting the front elevation is a further single-storey rubblestone structure with hipped natural slate roof and sheeted timber doors. To the north-east is an enclosed walled garden with tall redbrick walls and a pair of wrought-iron gates on redbrick piers. Within the walled garden is a detached corrugated iron hall, removed from Sixmilecross, County Tyrone in 1983. The site is enclosed to the road by rubblestone walling with stacked coping, featuring a pair of replacement steel gates supported on granite ashlar piers with decorative stone capstones.