Mount Pleasant, 38 Banbridge Road, Drumaran, Gilford, CRAIGAVON, BT63 6DJ

Mount Pleasant is a substantial two-storey, three-bay house built around 1780, standing on an elevated site on the north side of Banbridge Road to the east of Gilford village. It is a good and unusual example of the linen merchant houses of the Bann valley, retaining much of its original fabric alongside evidence of 19th-century remodelling and minor works from the interwar period. The house is L-shaped on plan, with a castellated parapet giving it an imposing character, and sits at the south corner of a rectangular courtyard of outbuildings. A walled garden opens to the west.

EXTERIOR

The roof is pitched natural slate of mixed sizes, possibly of local origin, with the front pitch concealed behind the castellated parapet. The return to the south-west has a parallel ridge forming an M-profile. Angled clay ridge tiles are used throughout, with concealed valley gutters and cast-iron downpipes. Rendered chimneystacks rise from each gable. The walls are ruled-and-lined render with rusticated quoins, terminating at the parapet.

The principal elevation faces south-east and is symmetrically arranged. At ground floor, tripartite windows are formed by a central 6-over-6 timber sliding sash flanked by 2-over-2 lights, all set within elliptical-headed architraves with plain tympana. At first floor the windows are 6-over-6 timber sliding sashes in moulded architraves. The first floor is five windows wide, more closely spaced at the outer bays. Some windows retain original crown glazing and have no horns. All windows have Mourne granite sills; those on the principal elevation have paired brackets beneath. The remaining windows throughout the house are 6-over-6 timber sliding sashes in plain reveals unless otherwise noted.

The principal entrance is a round-arched opening inset with an Ionic doorcase and entablature, surmounted by a delicate iron spider-web fanlight. The nine-panelled timber door retains its original ironmongery, including a lion's head knocker. Access is via a granite perron with five sweeping steps bridging the semi-basement and bounded by cast-iron railings. The basement level has a six-panelled timber door and a nine-pane window to either side.

Flanking the main elevation to the left is a single-storey extension with one window to the right and a nine-over-two-pane timber door to the left, reached by five steps with plain masonry guarding. To the right is a carriage screen with a three-centred arched opening leading to the farmyard. Both flanking elements are castellated, matching the parapet of the main block.

The south-west elevation has an M-profile roofline with castellated parapets between the gables concealing the valleys. There are three windows at first floor. At ground floor, a hipped-roofed, cement-rendered extension with a 20th-century metal-framed window insertion abuts to the right. A further mono-pitched corrugated-metal-roofed concrete-block addition of no architectural interest abuts to the south-west of this. To the left of the main block is a one-and-a-half storey annexe with a hipped slate roof and random rubble walls — some snecking to the upper reaches — with roughly dressed quoins. It has two replacement timber 3-over-6 sliding sash windows in brick-dressed openings, one of which shows evidence of an altered opening. The loft is lit by a modern rooflight. This annexe is joined by a further single-storey section integrated with the west outbuilding range, with a lean-to slate roof raised in brick above the eaves. It has a replacement top-hung window inserted into a formerly brick-dressed segmental-headed opening (the remainder of which is infilled with rubble stone), and a replacement vertically sheeted timber door to the left.

The rear elevation is plainly detailed. To the right is the rear return; to the left is a two-storey lean-to accommodating the rear landing and sanitary quarters. Rear access is via a modern door with sidelight to the single-storey hipped-roofed addition to the right. The lean-to contains, to the left, two horizontal 4-over-4 sliding sashes with a 3-over-6 sliding sash centred above, and to the right, a tripartite window of three equally-sized nine-pane lights with a central pivot. At first-floor landing level there is a triple Gothic window with interlocking glazing bars and coloured glass. The rear return has two 3-over-6 top-hung windows at ground floor and a 6-over-6 sliding sash with exposed box at first floor on its left-hand side. The north-east face of the rear return has a tripartite window — a 6-over-6 sliding sash flanked by 2-over-2 lights — at ground floor left; a 3-over-6 sliding sash with exposed box at ground floor right; and a 4-over-8 sliding sash with recessed box at first floor. The north-east elevation has a single window at first-floor right. The rear lean-to wall has been raised and castellated and contains a single replacement timber Gothic window.

OUTBUILDINGS AND SETTING

The courtyard is enclosed on all sides by ranges of stables, a barn and stores. The north-west range is a two-storey barn with a pitched slate roof, rubble stone walls, dressed quoin stones, and a central clock tower with weather vane. It has uPVC windows with granite sills and brick lintels, and vertically sheeted timber doors. To the left of this range are a pair of segmental-arched coach arches; there are otherwise five doors including two loft doors, those at ground floor level having granite plinth blocks and thresholds. An open double-height cart house to the left of the barn has internal access to the walled garden. To the north-east are single-storey rubble-stone stables, and to the south-east a single-storey rubble-stone shed; both have replacement corrugated-metal roofs and doors.

The house occupies an elevated site surrounded by mature trees, accessed by a long tarmacked lane leading to a gravel forecourt, with extensive views over surrounding farmland. The entrance is marked by square piers of dressed granite with moulded caps, flanked by replacement granite-faced walls. The walled garden, which contains a lawn, is bounded by a tall rubble stone wall raised with brick and containing timber access gates. A modern farmyard lies to the rear.

HISTORY

Mount Pleasant was built as a substantial residence for a wealthy linen bleaching proprietor and remained the home of linen bleachers for over a century. It is one of a series of such houses strung along the Bann valley.

The house was most likely built for George Darley, owner of the nearby bleach works. He is documented in original sources as the owner of a property called Mount Pleasant from at least 1796 until his death in 1825. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1834 record that bleach works at Mount Pleasant were built in 1786, suggesting the house was built at around the same time. There is a competing suggestion, noted by Rankin, that the present owners hold documents giving a construction date of 1760 and indicating that Thomas Christy of Moyallon built a house here on land belonging to Sir Richard Johnston of Gilford Castle; however, the appearance of the present building is more consistent with a late 18th-century date.

On George Darley's death in 1825, the property passed to Isaac Stoney, a linen merchant of Dublin and Frankford, King's County, who remained owner until at least 1853, when the estate came under the jurisdiction of the Irish Encumbered Estates Court. The Townland Valuation of 1828–40 lists Isaac Stoney as occupier and records the house, cellar, laundry, kitchen and outhouses including a poultry house, coach house, cow house, stables and privy. The outbuildings were mostly single-storey apart from the coach house, which had rooms over. The house was rated first class with a valuation of £30 17s. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834 shows the house and stable courtyard captioned as 'Mount Pleasant', with an extensive bleaching green to the front and a bleach mill and flour mill to the south. The bleach mill was the first in a series of such premises along the Bann from Mount Pleasant to Banbridge and beyond. The flour mill has since been converted into the Major Uprichard Memorial Orange Hall.

By the time of Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64, the owner was George Mullen. A fieldbook entry notes that a "new house is in progress August 1863", with the valuation subsequently raised from £30 to £42 on completion. Dimensions in the fieldbook and period Ordnance Survey maps suggest that the new house largely followed the plan of the old, indicating the building was remodelled rather than rebuilt.

In the early 1880s the house, bleach works, bleach green and nearby flour mill were acquired by Thomas Haughton and John Edgar, proprietors of the neighbouring Banford Bleach Works Company. By 1885 Mount Pleasant had become the residence of John Edgar. The 1901 census records Edgar living there with his wife, four children — his eldest daughter a teacher and his son an apprentice in the linen trade — and a general domestic servant. The house was designated first class and had fifteen rooms. By 1911, Edgar appears to have let the house to Anthony Cowdy, a member of a linen-bleaching dynasty whose grandfather, also named Anthony Cowdy, had founded the family business in Loughgall. Anthony Cowdy senior had moved part of his business to Banbridge in 1892 and lived at Millmount from 1902. The younger Anthony Cowdy at Mount Pleasant was continuing the linen bleaching business and lived with his English wife and three small children, the eldest born in Russian Poland, and a general domestic servant.

The long association of Mount Pleasant with the linen industry came to an end in 1919 when Mark Beck, a farmer and flour miller, became the new occupier. In 1920 the valuation of the house and outbuildings was reduced to £28, the property deemed 'unsuitable' as a farmhouse given its origins as a gentleman's residence. A subsequent occupier, Andrew Smyth (from 1922), was possibly a member of the well-known local family of linen bleachers and merchants. In 1925 the house passed to John Hale, and in 1937 to Hugh F. Buller. A reduction in valuation to £5 10s was recorded that year, with a valuer's note commenting that the house was "very old" and in "rather poor repair", with rotten floorboards and woodwork. At that time the accommodation comprised five bedrooms, a dressing room, two reception rooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, two pantries and a scullery.

The house remains in use as a private residence.