Outbuildings, Moyallon House, 136 Stramore Road, Moyallen, Portadown, CRAIGAVON, BT63 5JZ

These are the stable yard outbuildings to Moyallon House, a Georgian complex dating from before 1830 and likely built in the early years of the 19th century. They are arranged in a U-shape around a central gravelled courtyard to the south of the main house, and survive largely as originally planned, with most of their detailing intact both externally and internally. The group is of significant interest as an example of a Georgian stable yard, and contributes importantly to the historic character of the Moyallon House estate.

The main range to the south is a two-storey roughcast rendered coach-house block with a pedimented centrepiece and an oculus at the apex of the pediment. At ground floor level, two segmental-headed carriage arches give access to the coach-house, each fitted with timber-sheeted gates with painted strap hinges. The left and right ground-floor bays have timber-sheeted doors surmounted by timber fanlights, with windows above at first floor. The first floor of the central block has three recessed windows, the left and right being replacement uPVC and the centre a 3/6 timber sash. The south elevation of this block has a window and a timber-sheeted entrance to the upper right, two windows to the ground-floor left, and a timber-sheeted door with a four-pane transom light to the ground-floor right.

The east and west wings form the stable blocks. Each has two window openings to the first floor — the west wing having louvered vents — flanking a central timber-sheeted opening. At ground floor, each wing has a timber-sheeted entrance door surmounted by a fanlight to both left and right, with two windows between. The east wing is abutted to the north by a single-storey former motor house, a later addition dating from around the turn of the 20th century, which has large timber-sheeted doors to the centre, a 2/2 timber-framed window to the right, and a replacement uPVC window to the left, with a corrugated tin roof.

The west wing is abutted to the south by a two-storey former dairy. The south elevation of the dairy has four narrow openings at first floor and a timber-sheeted entrance to the centre. At ground floor, there is a window opening and timber-sheeted door to the left, and a 1/1 window with a wider timber-sheeted door and five-paned transom light to the right. The west gable of the dairy is blank.

To the west of the main courtyard group stands a detached two-storey former servants' block, rectangular on plan. This building has a half-hipped natural slate roof with a yellow brick chimneystack to the north gable, and cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on projecting timber eaves. Its principal elevation faces east and is five windows wide at first floor. At ground floor, two projecting porches with lean-to roofs open to the south, each with a modern four-panelled timber door with sidelight and a uPVC window to the east. The south gable has a window to the left of centre at ground floor. The west elevation has five windows to the first floor and is abutted at ground-floor right by a slated lean-to opening to the south with two modern timber doors. The north gable is abutted by a single-storey gardener's house. The windows throughout this block are replacement uPVC, sympathetically styled. The servants' block is listed separately.

Throughout the main courtyard group, roofs are pitched and hipped natural slate with blue/black angled ridge tiles and brick chimneystacks. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods are carried on projecting eaves. Walling is roughcast render, with smooth surrounds to all openings and keyblocks to entrances. Windows are mainly 3/3 timber-framed sliding sashes to the first floor and 6/6 timber-framed sashes with horns to the ground floor, all set in smooth surrounds with projecting granite sills, except to the former dairy.

The courtyard is gravelled and faces north, accessed from the east through a set of roughcast rendered square gate piers with original cast-iron gates. The gate piers and gates are included within the extent of the listing. A service yard lies to the south and west of the dairy, and the whole complex is surrounded by mature trees.

The outbuildings are largely shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834, though they may predate it by some years, as the site of the present house dates back to the late 18th century. The Townland Valuation of 1826 to 1840 lists the property under Thomas Wakefield and records a number of single and two-storey outbuildings including a turf house, potato house, stables and lofts, a coach house, cow house and privy. The complex was remodelled over the years but retains its original form. The only additions to the group were a play room added in the late 19th century and the motor house added around the turn of the 20th century. Valuation records from the 1930s describe the buildings in the courtyard as, working clockwise from the east: a motor house, a stable, a former coach house converted to a motor house with rooms over, a stable and loft with dairy to the rear, servants' quarters with lavatories to the rear, and a play room.

Moyallon House itself is a linen mansion first built on this site in 1794 by Thomas Christy Wakefield (1772–1861), a descendant of the Christy family who had settled Moyallon townland in 1675, having come from Scotland, and who are thought to have introduced the linen trade into the area. Thomas Christy Wakefield had been living in another house nearby, also called Moyallon House, which had been destroyed by fire. A house is known to have existed on the site in 1781, when the nearby Friends Meeting House was built; the meeting house trust deed of that year included the gift by Thomas Christy of a right of way from his gates to the meeting house, which continues to provide access to the site to this day.

Moyallon was part of a wider pattern of settlement by closely related Quakers along the River Bann between Moyallon and Lawrencetown, who built mansion houses reflecting the increasing success of the linen manufacture and trade in which they were engaged. In 1853 John Grubb Richardson married Jane Marion Wakefield of Moyallon House, and the property eventually passed to the couple on the death of her father. Griffith's Valuation records that by this date ownership had passed to John Grubb Richardson. In August 1863 the valuation of the buildings was raised from £55 to £100 because the dwelling house was being rebuilt, enlarged, and given new wings, with new offices and gate lodges also in progress. The architect of the remodelling is unknown, though the Quaker architect Thomas Jackson, well known to the Richardsons and responsible for meeting houses in Belfast and Lisburn, is thought to be responsible for the gate lodges at Moyallon. The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858 shows the house captioned as Moyallon House and also notes a thrashing machine within its curtilage. The third edition map of 1901 to 1902 shows the new house with gate lodges and additional outbuildings.

John Grubb Richardson was a descendant of the Richardsons of Lisnagarvey, recorded there as plantation settlers in 1610, and was one of seven sons of James Nicholson Richardson, founder of the bleaching and warehousing firm J.N. Richardson, Sons & Owden Ltd. He purchased the Mount Caulfield estate in Armagh and from 1845 developed the model village of Bessbrook around spinning mills and weaving factories, with houses, a school, churches, and a shop, but with no access to alcohol in accordance with Quaker temperance principles. In 1863 Richardson inherited an estate in County Tyrone, the sale of which appears to have funded both his sole acquisition of the Bessbrook works and village, and the extension of Moyallon House. A further gate lodge and a gas works were added to the Moyallon estate in 1871, raising the valuation to £140. John Grubb Richardson died in 1890, leaving his widow Jane in residence until her death in 1909. Their son Thomas Wakefield Richardson then took over the house. When the gas works was demolished in 1910, the valuation was reduced to £125. In the First General Revaluation of 1933 to 1934 the house was revalued at £118. At that time the estate included a glass-walled museum (since demolished), a laundry, drying room and loft with servants' bedrooms, three steam-heated greenhouses, stabling, four motor houses (one with two rooms over), stores, and agricultural buildings. The house had its own electric light, and the grounds included two grass tennis courts and a croquet lawn.

Thomas Wakefield Richardson died without children, and in 1945 the house passed to his nephew Alexander Reginald Wakefield Richardson. In the 1940s two of Alexander Richardson's children died of typhoid and a further child died shortly afterwards. Because of the associations of the house with this tragedy, Alexander, his wife Marianne, and their son Hugh moved to a nearby Richardson property called The Grange. Moyallon House was then vacated, its furniture was auctioned, and the premises was leased to the Department of Health and Social Services as a residential special care school. A fine marble fireplace was removed during this period and installed in Derrymore House, Bessbrook, which the Richardsons had donated to the National Trust. In the 1970s the house was run as a guest house by a Mrs Mathers and was subsequently vacant for some years. In the early 1980s it was renovated as a family home.

There has been a remarkable continuity of ownership from the Christy family, who first built on the site in 1794. In the early 1990s buildings to the west of the courtyard, described as a wash house and carriage house, were converted into two self-contained dwellings called 1 and 2 The Courtyard, with architect William C. Callaghan of Portadown also designing a conversion in the south wing of the main house. The stables continue to serve a working purpose, providing a base each year for draught horses competing in the Mullahead Ploughing Event, held annually on the Richardson acres running down to the Bann River.