The Laurels, 79 Moyallan Road, Moyallen, Portadown, CRAIGAVON, Co Down, BT63 5JY

The Laurels, 79 Moyallan Road, is a neat asymmetrical late Victorian house of three bays and one-and-a-half storeys, originally constructed as an orphanage in 1878. It stands in the hamlet of Moyallen, between Gilford and Portadown, and is of considerable social and historical significance as a product of Victorian philanthropic tradition, with strong links to the local Quaker community. Despite some replacement fabric, key characteristics survive and it represents an unusual and well-preserved building type.

The house is T-shaped on plan, with a modern return to the rear. It is built in polychrome brick in Flemish bond (English garden wall bond to the left cheek of the projecting central bay), with yellow brick quoins and areas of cement pointing. The roof is pitched natural slate with roll-moulded blue and black ridge tiles. The chimneystacks are instepped polychrome brick, positioned at the gables and at the junction with the projecting central bay. Cast-iron rainwater goods run over exposed rafter tails, and the gables have A-frame bargeboards — their apertures now infilled — with timber finials.

The principal elevation faces west and is dominated by a full-height projecting central bay, with a window at each floor and to the left cheek at ground floor level only. Between the ground and first floor windows of this bay is a granite plaque set in a moulded surround, inscribed "A FATHER / OF THE FATHERLESS IS GOD / IN THIS HOLY HABITATION / T.C.W." The right bay contains the principal entrance to its left side, with a modern timber sheeted door beneath a fishscale-slated canopy supported on picturesque Gothic-style brackets with trefoil apertures and stop-end chamfering. Above the door is a wall-head dormer window surmounted by a datestone, the upper part of which has been crudely removed, leaving only the date 1878. To the right of the door is a ground floor window. The left bay has a window at each floor level. The north gable is blank.

Windows throughout are largely replacement 1-over-1 sashes, arranged as bipartite openings to the principal rooms. One original quadripartite casement window survives at first floor level in the left bay. All original openings have yellow brick dressings and granite sills. The rear, or east, elevation is largely modern, featuring a replacement return and a flat-roofed extension abutting the right side; to the left side of the return there is a mid-level stair window and modern French doors. The south gable has an infilled door opening at ground floor right and two windows at attic level.

The house sits slightly back from the main road, bounded by a modern boundary wall and shrubs, with a neatly planted shrubbery to the front and a large lawned garden to the rear. To the south is an expansive gravelled parking area and a modern garage. To the north is a row of small late 19th-century shops and houses, including the former post office, forming a small settlement.

The building was constructed as a result of a bequest by Thomas Christy Wakefield, who died in 1878. The inscription "T.C.W." on the granite plaque refers to him directly. Wakefield was the great-grandson of Thomas Christy, whose forebears are thought to have first established the linen trade along this stretch of the River Bann and were the first Quakers to settle in the district. Thomas Christy Wakefield's father, also named Thomas Christy Wakefield (1772–1861), built Moyallon House in 1794, which became the principal family residence. On his death, Thomas Christy Wakefield (died 1878) left his property to his daughter Jane Marion Richardson (née Wakefield). In founding the orphanage, Wakefield followed a tradition both of Quaker philanthropy and of Victorian social paternalism, in which the moneyed classes offered protection to the disadvantaged, softening the harsher effects of a competitive market economy.

Unusually, the orphanage does not appear in Annual Revision fieldbooks and is first listed in the First General Revaluation of the 1930s. However, it does appear in the 1901 census, at which time it was being run by Sarah Feugard, matron and a member of the Society of Friends, and was catering exclusively for orphan children of Quakers. At that time, eight girls were resident in the ten-room house: four from Belfast, two from Ballymena, one from County Armagh, and one from Scotland. All the orphans were female and aged between 6 and 11. By 1911, Sarah Feugard remained matron, but the composition of the orphans had changed markedly: the ten girls were now almost all Episcopalian, coming largely from County Armagh, with one each from Lisburn, County Tyrone, and Dublin. Rebecca Uprichard was the only Quaker child in residence at that time. The girls were aged between 6 and 17.

At the time of the First General Revaluation in 1934, the orphanage was valued at £19 10s, run by trustees and leased from Hilda Richardson. A plan and dimensions recorded at that time show the building comprising five bedrooms, two reception rooms, two kitchens, a scullery, and a bathroom with hot and cold water. Sarah Feugard appears to have run the orphanage until her death in 1935, when she was in her mid-seventies.

Quaker sources indicate that the orphanage was not under the formal control of the Society of Friends but was a private venture run by the Richardson family. It is recalled that Gertrude Harris (née Richardson) (1865–1938), wife of the Quaker Frederick Leverton Harris MP (1864–1926), financed the orphanage for many years, paying for the housekeeper and running expenses, though she lived in London. Her husband, Leverton Harris, played an instrumental part in restricting imports to Germany during the First World War and was described as "the man who really makes the blockade." Towards the end of the war, both he and Gertrude were touched by scandal: Gertrude was accused of visiting an interned German — the son of a family friend — in prison and bringing him correspondence and parcels. Leverton Harris was a noted collector of art and antiques, and left a substantial collection of maiolica to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, with further collections to the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum, and the National Portrait Gallery. In later life he studied at the Slade School of Art and took up oil painting.

The orphanage was originally intended to provide for local orphans but later took in girls from further afield, including Dublin. The girls all attended Moyallon Quaker Meeting and are listed in the Meeting's Book of Names: in 1913, for instance, seven girls are recorded. Sarah Feugard, the long-serving matron, was an Elder and a dependable member of the meeting. The orphanage remained in use until around 1950, after which it became a private home for members of the Richardson family, who gave it its current name, The Laurels. It continues in use as a private residence.