4 Dandy Row, Lenaderg, Banbridge, Co Down, BT32 4NP

A two-storey single-bay mid-terrace mill workers house built circa 1868. The building is located off Huntley Road adjacent to the junction with Lurgan Road, approximately one and a half miles north of Banbridge, forming part of a terrace that runs perpendicular to the main road. A private access runs along the front, terminating at a former school building now derelict.

The house has a square plan with a rear return. The pitched natural slate roof is laid with clay ridge tiles and fitted with uPVC replacement rainwater goods. A rendered chimney rises from the pitched roof. The exterior walling is roughcast cement rendered, sitting on an artificial stone plinth. Windows are replacement timber top-hung casements, while the door is also a replacement timber example of no architectural interest.

The principal elevation faces north and is asymmetrically arranged, with the front door positioned to the left and a single window to the right, with a single first-floor window directly above. The left gable is abutted by an adjoining building. The rear elevation is completely abutted by a modern full-width two-storey pitched roof return with matching eaves level. This return features a single first-floor picture window, a recessed ground floor with a single picture window and rear door, all of no architectural interest. The right gable is similarly abutted by an adjoining building. The house forms part of a cluster of associated historic buildings.

The house has undergone extensive alterations that have resulted in loss of character and detailing. Its primary architectural interest lies in its relationship with the adjacent buildings and its significance within the social and industrial development of the area. However, it is not among the best examples of the type and has been affected by changes to the remainder of the terrace.

Valuation records date the house to circa 1868. It was built as one of a terrace of five dwellings serving as worker's housing for Milltown bleach works, established in 1820 by John Smyth, a descendant of a linen-trading family. The works became, by 1839, the largest bleaching and finishing works on the Bann with an output of 40,000 pieces of cloth per year. Three of John and Anna Smyth's twelve children later formed William Smyth & Co Ltd, a successful firm eventually employing more than 250 people. The terrace was built by William and John Smyth as part of a self-contained industrial settlement incorporating housing, education and other services such as a reading room, following the Victorian tradition of industrial paternalism. The railway lines connecting Banbridge with Scarva (1859) and Lisburn (1863) provided convenient transport for the company's goods and aided business expansion. By 1886 the bleach works and bleach greens covered 220 acres with six iron water wheels. An iron foundry was established in 1876 for the company's own needs and local light engineering work. The works were water powered with steam used as an auxiliary.

The buildings first appear in the Annual Revision fieldbook dating from 1864 to 1878 as newly-built vacant kitchen dwellings valued at two shillings and ten pence. The houses were initially unfinished and were revalued in 1868 at four pounds each following the addition of returns. By 1868 the majority were occupied, initially under John Smyth Senior and later under William Smyth & Co Ltd. The first occupier of number four noted was John Brown in 1869. Subsequent occupiers included Joseph McCarbery (1902), John McCarbery (1904), William McCarbery (1909), Sarah McCarbery (date unknown) and Johnston McCoy (1939). The 1901 census lists the householder as John McCabery, a carpenter living with his wife and six children aged between one and eighteen years. His two older daughters worked as hemstitchers and his fourteen-year-old son as a grocer's assistant. By 1911 the house had been taken over by John's son William, living with his widowed mother, three brothers and sister. His brothers worked as weavers and a beamer in the weaving factory, presumably Hazelbank, less than a mile away and also under the Smyth family management. By 1933 the houses were listed as 'old cottages in fair condition' with accommodation comprising three bedrooms, a kitchen and scullery, at a weekly rent of two shillings and eight pence. The mill produced linen until the 1940s. The company went into voluntary liquidation in 1945, having been taken over by the Irish Bleachers' Association some years previously. Factory buildings were eventually demolished in the 1950s. The house continues in use as a dwelling.