Gilford Castle, 5 Banbridge Road, Gilford, CRAIGAVON, Co Down, BT63 6DJ

Gilford Castle is a large country house built around 1870 in the Scottish Baronial style to designs by William Spence, a Scottish architect based in Glasgow. It stands within an extensive private demesne to the south of Gilford village in County Down, and is one of the finest and most intact examples of Scottish Baronial architecture in the region. The house was built on the proceeds of the local linen industry at the height of its success, and almost all of its historic fabric survives in good condition.

ARCHITECTURAL OVERVIEW

The house is arranged on an asymmetrical, irregular U-shaped plan of two storeys over a concealed basement, with a north entrance wing, a west garden front, and a lower two-storey south service wing attached on axis. The complex is arranged around a small central courtyard, enclosed to the east by a single-storey outbuilding range. A second courtyard to the south separates the south wing from the stableyard. The roofline is complex, with pitched natural slate roofs at different levels. Ashlar sandstone chimneystacks rise from the gables and carry multiple clay pots. The gables have saddleback coping on kneeler stones, and ogee-profile cast iron gutters are supported on corbel brackets. Turrets carry conical roofs with filigree finials.

The external walling is rock-faced Armagh limestone, with tooled ashlar quoins, plinth, stringcourse and window surrounds. Windows are set in moulded stone architraves. The principal elevation features a variety of mullioned and transomed-and-mullioned windows; elsewhere, windows are generally two-over-four timber sliding sashes, some retaining original glazing. Some windows have label moulds and all have chamfered sills. Turrets, bays and the porch are finished in tooled ashlar limestone.

PRINCIPAL ENTRANCE FRONT (NORTH)

The entrance front faces north and presents an irregular frontage arranged across three levels, with strong Scottish Baronial character throughout, including gables that break the eaves line over some first-floor windows. To the right of centre is a single-storey projecting open porch, surmounted by a two-over-two sliding sash window set within a corbelled wall-headed gablet, flanked by a transomed-and-mullioned window with a two-over-two sliding sash window above. To the right is a wide two-storey gabled projecting bay with a box bay window and parapet at ground-floor level. A slimmer three-storey gabled projecting bay abuts the left side, with a full-height turret at the re-entrant angle. A multifoil motif decorates the box bay parapet.

The open porch is heavily ornamented: the opening is a moulded three-centred arch with carved spandrel panels, and the corner piers are decorated with fretwork motifs and elongated diamond panels. A fretted parapet is supported on corbel brackets, and the piers are topped with ornate ball finials with spikes. The left and right cheeks of the porch have depressed gothic openings. The entrance door is a double-leaf oak panelled door with brass door furniture and a brass bell pull, accessed by two stone steps.

EAST GABLE AND COURTYARD RANGE

The east gable of the north wing is blank and is abutted by a single-storey store accessed from the central courtyard. This store is brick-built and stone-faced to the north elevation only, lit by two windows to the front and one to the east gable. It returns southward, linking with the east gable of the lower two-storey service wing, which has an enlarged window opening to the first floor. Original openings in the service wing are one-over-two sliding sashes, with diminutive sashes to the first floor right, along with a timber-sheeted courtyard entrance door and a loading door to the store. The gable of the main south wing is blank.

SOUTH ELEVATION

The south elevation is relatively plain in its detailing, with a gabled projecting right bay. The main south wing extends eastward into a lower one-and-a-half-storey service annexe, which is brick-built with plain white brick eaves. Openings are dressed in ashlar limestone, with the exception of a door opening to the right which has a replacement cement surround. The main elevation is abutted by a single-storey addition, lit by a roof lantern and a transomed-and-mullioned window contained within a gabled breakfront to the west. The service annexe and this addition together frame a paved rear courtyard, enclosed by a high wall with a timber-framed door and the stableyard to the south.

WEST (GARDEN) ELEVATION

The west garden elevation has a projecting gabled left bay with a bowed bay window to the ground floor, and a shallower projecting right bay with a broad canted ground-floor bay window. Both ground-floor bay windows are detailed with fretted parapets. A bartizan on a corbelled stone base sits at the re-entrant angle between the central and left bays.

COURTYARD

The courtyard is accessed via a timber-sheeted door to the east. It is paved with terracotta tiles, with a geometric tiled perimeter path giving access to the rear entrance door leading to the service corridor in the south wing, and to a series of stores along the east side. The path is covered by a catslide roof to the east and by an overhanging first floor to the south, each supported on a series of cast iron columns. The walling is painted brick in English garden wall bond, with chamfered limestone dressings to openings and tooled limestone quoins. The fenestration is irregular and includes a large transomed-and-mullioned stained glass stairwell window on the east elevation of the west front. The south elevation of the north front is abutted by a late 20th-century lean-to stairwell addition, partially glazed with painted brick walling.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Gilford Castle was completed around 1870 as the residence of Benjamin Dickson, a partner in the Dunbar McMaster linen thread company, upon whose success much of the growth and prosperity of Gilford town was founded. Benjamin's brother James Dickson was also a partner in the firm, and William Spence — the designer of Gilford Castle — also designed a house called Elmfield for James. The castle replaced an earlier house on the estate. The first castle at Gilford is thought to have been built in the early 18th century by William Johnston, a captain in the Royal Irish Dragoons who had inherited part of the Gilford estates from the grandson of Captain John Magill, a soldier in Cromwell's army who was the early proprietor of Gilford and from whom the town's name is thought to derive. Johnston was knighted in 1714 and went on to serve as High Sheriff of Down in 1717 and of Armagh in 1721. After his death in 1722, the castle and estates passed successively to his son Richard and his grandson, also Richard. With the death of Richard Johnston's son William in 1841, the baronetcy became extinct, and the castle and demesne were sold by William's younger sister Catherine to Benjamin Dickson. The old castle, which stood on the south side of what is now Castle Street close to the road and on the edge of the demesne, fell into decay and was demolished in the 1860s prior to the completion of the new building. The new castle was begun in the mid-1860s and completed around 1870.

The choice of the Scottish Baronial style and the historically significant site reflects an ambition to associate a prominent businessman with the traditions of the landed gentry. However, Benjamin Dickson apparently never inhabited the castle: he is never recorded as the occupier in valuation records, and local tradition holds that when he showed the house to his new fiancée she disliked it so strongly that she refused to live in it. The castle is first listed in valuation records around 1870, at a valuation of £200. The Dickson brothers dissolved their partnership with McMaster in 1866, though dissatisfaction with the settlement terms led to a legal dispute ultimately won by McMaster. The brothers subsequently entered into partnership with their brother-in-law Thomas Ferguson of Banbridge to form Dickson, Ferguson and Co., a power-loom weaving company. The Dicksons retired from this business in 1883.

The first recorded occupier of the castle was Percy Jocelyn McMaster, younger brother of Hugh Dunbar McMaster, proprietor of Gilford Mill, who took up residence in 1887, leasing from Benjamin Dickson. The property was revalued that year in two parts, each valued at £75. McMaster's tenancy was short-lived, and by 1891 the house was again vacant. A tenant named Purcell is recorded around 1896, but by the 1901 census the only occupant was the gardener and caretaker, James Emerson, who occupied three rooms with his wife and six children, his fourteen-year-old daughter working as a seamstress.

In 1904, the house and demesne was purchased by Katherine Carleton for £15,000. The valuer recorded that the original cost to Benjamin Dickson had been approximately £42,000, and observed that the price paid by Carleton represented the value of the land alone, with the castle effectively given for nothing. Katherine Carleton became the first long-term resident of the castle since its construction. The 1911 census records her as a fifty-four-year-old spinster living at the castle with a female companion and two domestic servants, a cook and a parlourmaid. In 1918 the house was purchased by James F. Wright, whose descendants continue to live there today.

By 1934, the accommodation comprised two reception rooms, a billiards room, a library, a study, two kitchens, two pantries, a scullery, a larder and a dairy on the ground floor. The first floor contained six bedrooms, two dressing rooms, two bathrooms, a nursery, a sewing room and three maids' rooms. The second floor comprised two attic rooms.

During the Second World War, the demesne was used for military purposes. Nissen huts were erected in the grounds, and in 1943 the demesne housed a squadron of United States troops together with their medical detachment, who built a temporary hospital to the rear of the castle. Valuation records show that 35 acres of land were requisitioned by the War Department in October 1940, with a further one rood and fifteen perches requisitioned in July 1941.

The castle is currently a family home. The owner is a well-known local artist.

SETTING

Gilford Castle occupies an extensive private demesne bounded by a river to the west and woodland to the south and east. The house is approached via a long sweeping drive from the north, fronted by a gravel courtyard. The gardens are largely lawned with little formal planting, and the picturesque wooded setting survives substantially unaltered. To the rear are the stableyards and saw mill, and at some distance to the south is a walled garden. The main entrance is located close to the village, and there is a secondary farm entrance with a lodge to the east. Associated estate structures of good quality include a fine stableyard, gate screen, walled garden, and farm entrance with lodge. There are also connections with the nearby house of Elmfield.