Lodge, 11 Moyallan Road, Gilford, PORTADOWN, Co Down, BT63 5JX

Gate Lodge, Bannvale House, 11 Moyallan Road, Gilford

This is a single-storey, two-bay gate lodge built around 1850, situated on the Moyallan Road opposite the former east entrance to Bannvale House. It is now derelict and roofless, though it retains some historic character and has group value with Bannvale House itself and a second surviving lodge from around 1880.

The building is rectangular on plan. Its walls are built in coursed basalt, laid to courses in places, with granite quoins at the corners. Windows have painted brick dressings, with granite cills. The principal elevation faces south-west and is symmetrically arranged, with a window to either side of a central entrance opening — there is no door. The windows on this front elevation are boarded up, but internal inspection reveals vestiges of segmental-headed multi-pane sash windows. On the north-west elevation there is one window opening, partially concealed by vegetation. The south-east elevation has a single window opening. The rear north-east elevation is built into a bank and is inaccessible. There are no rainwater goods. A brick chimneystack sits on the central party wall but is now hidden by vegetation. Where the roof once stood, vestiges of exposed profiled timber rafter tails survive.

The lodge sits slightly back from a busy road, with wooded banks and curved stone retaining walls to either side. Farmland lies to the rear.

Bannvale House itself dates from the early 19th century and is one of a series of linen bleachers' mansions built along the River Bann between Banbridge and Moyallon, reflecting the area's prominence as one of the most important inland linen manufacturing districts in Ireland during that period. The house is thought to have been built by James Uprichard in the early years of the 19th century — an original lease of 1809 bears his name. The Uprichards, in common with many of the leading linen families of the Bann Valley, were members of the Society of Friends (Quakers), and the house remained in Uprichard family ownership for more than a hundred years.

James Uprichard, along with his younger brothers Thomas and Henry, founded the linen bleaching company J, T and H Uprichard, acquiring a bleach works at Springvale in Lawrencetown shortly after 1830. Funds to purchase it were partly raised by selling land at Bannvale to Hugh Dunbar, who subsequently established the linen thread mill at Gilford. The bleach works at Bannvale itself appears to have fallen into disuse once Springvale was acquired. Springvale Bleach Works became a highly successful enterprise, expanded by William Uprichard in 1884 at a cost of £10,000, and did not finally close until 1955.

On James Uprichard's death in 1840, Bannvale passed to his second son William. Henry Albert Uprichard inherited in 1884 but preferred nearby Elmfield Castle as his main residence, and let Bannvale to a succession of tenants through the 1890s. On Henry Albert's death in November 1901, the property passed to his second son, also named Henry Albert (1880–1916), along with a share in Springvale Bleach Works. The younger Henry Albert had by this time established himself as a tea merchant with the firm Forster Green & Co, eventually becoming its Managing Director. He lived at Bannvale intermittently in the early 20th century, but by 1911 the house had been let to a widow, Anne Jane Kane, and her two daughters, who kept a single domestic servant. Kane appears to have been a relative by marriage of the Uprichards — William Uprichard's wife Nancy was a daughter of the Rector of Tullylish and bore the surname Kane.

Major Henry Albert Uprichard was Commander of the 2nd Battalion of the West Down regiment of the Ulster Volunteer Force. He enlisted when war broke out and was killed in action during the attack on Thiepval in July 1916. He is commemorated by the Major Uprichard Memorial Orange Hall at Tullylish. Uprichard had been a wealthy man, having inherited a portion of his grandfather's fortune, and was an enthusiastic polo player who rode at steeplechase and point-to-point meetings, hunting with the County Down Staghounds and the Iveagh Harriers.

After Major Uprichard's death the house was sold, and from the autumn of 1916 it was used as an orthopaedic hospital for wounded soldiers, extending the facilities at nearby Dunbarton House by an additional thirty beds. By 1955, Bannvale had become a unit for boys with special needs under the Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority. It is now used as an administration building for the Southern Health and Social Care Trust.

The present gate lodge is first shown, captioned, on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, alongside an earlier uncaptioned lodge that was eventually demolished in the 1930s. Griffith's Valuation of 1864 lists a gate lodge on the estate at a time when William Uprichard was making additions and improvements to the property, during which the combined valuation of the estate's buildings rose from £36 to £56. Annual Revisions record the lodge simply as a house leased from William Uprichard, unoccupied for some years and valued at £1 5s.

At the time of the 1901 census, the occupier was James Donaldson, a gardener and domestic servant from County Derry, living with his wife and two children aged eleven and one. His wife and older child had been born in County Tyrone. Donaldson was followed in succession by John Jackson (1902), John Wilson (1904), William James Gracey (1904), and Daniel Commerford in 1911. Commerford was an Oxford-born coachman who lived in the lodge with his County Down wife and their three young children. Later occupiers included Henry Guigan (1918) and James Boyce (1920).

By 1934 the lodge was home to Joseph Vaughan. The First General Revaluation assessed it at £3 10s, reduced to £2 5s on appeal, and described it as comprising a kitchen, scullery, bedroom, and two attics. The rent was 2 shillings, free of taxes, and the property was recorded as being in good position and repair. However, an inspection in 1935 found the house very damp and old, with the attic considered unfit for use. Subsequent occupiers were Robert Nicholson (1938) and James Cranston (date unknown). The lodge became the property of the Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority by 1955 and is now recorded as derelict.