Marybrook, 50 Kinallen Road, Dromara, Co Down, BT32 3RN

Marybrook is a symmetrical one-and-a-half-storey Victorian farmhouse built around 1859, located north of Kinallen village in County Down. It was constructed to replace an earlier manse associated with First Dromara Presbyterian Meeting House, and sits within a complex of outbuildings, some of which date from the early 19th century. The house, outbuildings, and gates are all included within the listing.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The building has a rectangular plan form with rear returns and abutments. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with weathered terracotta ridge tiles, timber moulded barge boards, and plain fascia boards. The chimneystacks are smooth rendered with a corbelled upper course, terracotta pots, and tall octagonal moulded pots. Cast-iron rainwater goods are fitted throughout, including moulded hopper heads.

The external walling is ruled-and-lined render with projected long-and-short quoins. A corbelled platband runs at eaves level to the central dormer. Windows throughout the principal elevations are 6-over-6 timber sliding sashes with exposed boxes, horns, and painted masonry cills.

The front door is a four-panelled design with raised-and-pointed bolection mouldings and round-headed upper panels, fitted with brass ironmongery. It sits within a panelled pilaster frame flanked by round-headed single-glazed side lights with apron panels. Above is an elliptical arched fanlight with radial glazing bars, approached by plain granite steps.

PRINCIPAL ELEVATIONS

The principal elevation faces west and is symmetrically arranged. The front entrance is centrally placed, with two ground floor windows to either side. A wall-head dormer sits directly above the entrance, containing a round-headed fixed light with radial glazing bars and a terracotta finial to the gable apex. A projecting wheel guard stone is positioned to the left.

The left gable is asymmetrically arranged, with a single ground floor window to the left and two diminished-in-scale windows at upper floor level.

The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged and finished in roughcast walling with lugged window reveals. Modern double-leaf glazed doors are positioned at ground floor left. The centre of the rear is abutted by a two-storey return with a lower ridge level but a higher eaves level; the right cheek of this return has a ground floor tripartite window and a first floor window to the left, with a canopy over. To the right, a modern lean-to extension forms an enclosed porch with a dormer window above and a large casement window to the left. The rear right gable has a single ground floor window and two first floor windows; at ground floor left it is further abutted by a single-storey pitched roof ancillary block. The left cheek has a bipartite ground floor window and a first floor window to the left, and is abutted to the right by a modern lean-to sunroom that is fully glazed on each elevation. The right gable is asymmetrically arranged, with a single ground floor window to the left and two diminished-in-scale upper floor windows.

SETTING

The dwelling is partially screened by trees and approached via a long private lane lined by timber fences. The principal elevation is reached through roughly dressed part-rubble masonry piers with pyramidal caps and wrought-iron gates with castings. The front of the house addresses a garden and gravel driveway, enclosed to the north and south by a rubble wall, with various wrought-iron gates and masonry piers throughout, and a further garden to the south.

To the rear is a large concrete yard surrounded by a variety of early to mid-19th century rubble masonry outbuildings. These have pitched natural slate roofs, red-brick surrounds, elliptical-arched coach entrances, square-headed window and door openings, and exposed timber collar beam trusses with purlins and rafters. The east block has galletted masonry. The southernmost block, which dates from the early 20th century, has brick relieving arches over its openings. The west block is smooth rendered on its yard-facing elevation and finished in coursed rubble masonry to the rear.

In the centre of the yard stands a pig pen of semi-circular rubble masonry construction, comprising a mono-pitched slated roof with a walled enclosure to the front and wrought-iron gates.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Marybrook has a documented history stretching back at least to the early 19th century. The site does not appear as the current house on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833, but the long single-storey outbuilding to the north and the two-storey barns to the northeast were already present by that date. The site was captioned as "Marybrook" on the 1833 map, and the contemporary Townland Valuation of the 1830s records a dwelling on the site — though its exact location is unclear from the map — occupied by the Reverend William Craig and valued at £9 7s. The Reverend Craig was minister of First Dromara Presbyterian Meeting House in the nearby townland of Ardtanagh, and the Ordnance Survey Memoirs record that Marybrook served as the church's manse.

The Reverend Craig resided at Marybrook until 1858, when a new manse was constructed in the townland of Tullinisky, first appearing on the second edition Ordnance Survey map in 1859. That same map shows that by 1859 all of the surviving outbuildings had been erected with the exception of the single-storey outbuilding to the south side of the site, which was constructed between 1859 and the third edition of the maps in 1903. The most significant addition to the site since 1833, however, was the construction of the current dwelling itself, which appeared on the 1859 map in its current T-shaped plan form.

According to McClelland, the farm was originally purchased by the congregation in 1795 for £300 by the Reverend James Jackson Birch. Birch's grandson succeeded him but was subsequently suspended from First Dromara on account of drunkenness. The new Kinallen manse was constructed in 1858 at a cost of £600 during the ministry of the Reverend William Craig, who served at First Dromara between 1823 and 1871 and had previously resided at Marybrook.

When the Reverend Craig vacated the property, Marybrook became a private dwelling. Griffith's Valuation of 1861 records that the Earl Clanwilliam leased the site — by then increased in value to £24 — to a Mr James B. Kennedy, a local farmer of apparently high standing, as the 1861 Ulster Town Directory listed him under the heading of Gentry and Clergymen. Kennedy vacated Marybrook in the mid-1860s, when a Mr Robert Skelly, also a farmer, took possession and continued to reside there until his death in 1899. The 1901 Census records that after Skelly's death, Marybrook was occupied by his widow Mary Ann Skelly (aged 46, Presbyterian) along with her three sons, who assisted with the farm work. The census building return described the house as a first-class dwelling consisting of six rooms, with farm offices in the outbuildings that included two stables, two cow houses, a dairy, piggery, fowl house, boiling house, and a two-storey barn.

By 1911 the house appears to have been extended, as the census building return for that year records the house as consisting of 15 rooms, suggesting the rear extension was constructed between 1901 and 1911. Mary Ann Skelly continued to reside at Marybrook until her own death in 1931. Prior to her death, the value of Marybrook was reduced to £18 in 1928, though the valuer did not record the reason for this change. Three large modern barns to the east and northeast of the original site were erected between 1920 and 1975, when they first appear on the Ordnance Survey map.

Marybrook farm was listed in 1977 and has continued since then to be occupied and used as a farm. The majority of the outbuildings have survived and been well maintained, though the outbuilding in the centre of the courtyard had fallen into a state of disrepair in recent years and lacks its original slate roof.

THE BETSY GRAY TRADITION

The current owner has suggested that prior to the site's purchase by the Reverend James Birch in 1795, Marybrook farm was possibly the dwelling of Elizabeth "Betsy" Gray, a folk heroine associated with the 1798 Rebellion. Tradition holds that Betsy Gray, a young Presbyterian woman, fought in the Battle of Ballynahinch alongside her brother and her lover, who were supporters of the United Irishmen. Following the defeat of the United Irishmen at Ballynahinch, all three were apprehended by a detachment of the Hillsborough Yeomanry Infantry and murdered; Gray is said to have had her hand cut off before being decapitated. This incident is traditionally associated with a location at the corner of what is known as "Horner's Road" in the townland of Ballycreen.

The precise origins of Betsy Gray are not known with certainty. In the late 19th century, W. G. Lyttle compiled an article examining the various assertions and theories as to her birthplace. One tradition holds that she came from the townland of Tullinisky, which neighbours Kinallen, citing a John Gray who resided there with his wife Rebecca in the late 18th century and whose daughter Elizabeth was baptised at Garvaghy Parish Church in 1780. A letter written from Marybrook in 1818 by the Reverend James Jackson Birch lends some credence to local associations, in which he wrote that his "uncle knew her well. He says she was a pretty lass with golden curls, a fair daughter of humble parents." However, according to Newmann, Betsy Gray was in fact born near Bangor, and Lyttle's article includes a number of other plausible claims. As with most heroic folk traditions, the interweaving of myth and fact makes it difficult to confirm any particular account with certainty.

CONDITION AND INTEGRITY

Much of the historic character and appearance of the house survives, though the additions to the rear have altered the proportions of the rear return, detracting from the historic integrity of the dwelling. The interior has undergone major refurbishment following a period of dereliction and is now substantially of modern fabric. Despite these alterations, Marybrook represents a good example of a type of modest country house that is fast disappearing, and its history — as a manse, a farm, and a site of local tradition — adds considerable interest to the complex as a whole.