Island House, 5 Tullymore Road, Banbridge, Co Down, BT35 6QP

Island House is a symmetrical two-storey, three-bay farmhouse of rectangular plan form with a two-storey return, situated on the west side of Tullymore Road approximately seven miles south of Banbridge. Buildings on the site are shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834, and the house had assumed its present plan form by the second edition of 1860. The farmhouse is a good example of a small Victorian farmstead that has retained much of its original character and is becoming increasingly rare in an unaltered state.

The roof is pitched natural slate with clay ridge tiles and replacement uPVC rainwater goods. The chimneystacks are ruled-and-lined rendered with corbelled upper courses and plain clay pots, with the exception of the return's red brick chimneystack which has a moulded cornice. The external walls are roughcast rendered with projected long-and-short quoins and a smooth rendered projecting plinth.

Windows throughout are 1/1 double-glazed sliding sash with moulded horns, smooth rendered slightly projecting reveals and masonry cills, unless otherwise noted. The principal (east) elevation is symmetrically arranged, with the central entrance porch flanked by single windows at ground floor and three first-floor windows directly above the ground-floor openings. The left (south) gable is symmetrically arranged with two ground-floor windows and an apex chimney. The right (north) gable is asymmetrically arranged with a single first-floor window to the right and an apex chimney.

The entrance porch is a 20th-century addition, gabled with a hipped back to the main building, finished with artificial slate roofing and scalloped timber bargeboards with exposed timber rafter tails. Its walls are smooth rendered with a projected plinth, and each cheek has a round-arched 1/1 sliding sash window. The door itself is a bolection-moulded, raised-and-chamfered four-panelled timber door with muntin bead and brass ironmongery, set into an elliptical-arched opening with a decorative leaded overlight and sidelights with apron panels. The door-case sits within a square-headed recess with a replacement step.

The rear (west) elevation is asymmetrically arranged, with a two-storey return right of centre and a further abutment. There is a single first-floor window to the right of the return and single ground- and first-floor windows to the left. The subservient gabled return has lower eaves and ridge levels. Its blank gable has an apex chimney; the right cheek has two equally spaced ground-floor windows with two windows directly above at first floor; the left cheek has a central first-floor window, a bipartite ground-floor window to the right, and a single-storey 20th-century gabled rear porch abutted to the left. This rear porch has natural slate roofing and a modern half-glazed timber door with a sidelight to the gable at left. The right cheek of the return has a metal window; the left cheek abuts the main block.

The setting is rural, adjacent to the main road. A small front garden addresses the principal elevation and is bounded by a wrought-iron railing with castings and a matching pedestrian gate. To the rear is a variety of historic outbuildings finished in lime render over rubble masonry.

Two earlier 19th-century gable-ended outbuildings run parallel to the north of the house. The left outbuilding is extended to the west by a single-storey lean-to abutment and has natural slate roofing, timber-sheeted doors, and timber sash and metal windows. The right outbuilding has replacement artificial slate roofing, timber-sheeted doors and sliding sash windows. Abutting its west gable is a late 19th-century barrel-roofed outbuilding with a corrugated iron roof over timber boards on lattice trusses with parallel latticework bracing, and steel-framed, timber-louvered openings — a notable surviving example of a Belfast truss. On the adjacent outbuilding the barrel roof has been replaced with a pitched roof. Immediately to the rear of the house is a pair of lean-to structures abutting either side of a rubble masonry wall, part exposed and part roughcast cement rendered. Beyond the complex stand slender rubble masonry piers with concrete caps supporting wrought-iron field gates. Minor modern replacements throughout the site do not detract from its overall authenticity.

The farm is recorded in the Townland Valuation of 1828–40 as a house and offices valued at £7 3s, occupied by Robert Gibson. Dimensions recorded at that time describe a two-storey slated house 45 feet long and 21 feet 6 inches wide, with a single-storey return and two single-storey outbuildings, one of which was thatched. Griffith's Valuation lists the tenant as Margaret Gibson, who leased the 23-acre farm from the Earl of Clanwilliam at a rent of £27 7s 4d per year, with the buildings valued at £6 10s and the offices noted as slated. The farm passed to Archibald Marshall in 1870 and Samuel James Marshall in 1874. Falkiner B. Small became tenant in 1888 and, according to owner information, is believed to have rebuilt or remodelled the farmhouse around 1895, although the plan form remained unchanged and no increase in valuation was recorded at that time. Small is also thought to have been responsible for adding the byre with a curved lattice truss roof that appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1903, the edition on which the house is first captioned "Island House". Owner information records that the house was named after nearby Island Cottage, situated on high ground surrounded by bog.

By the time of the 1901 census, Small headed a large household comprising his mother, wife, uncle (recorded as an "imbecile"), a one-year-old son, a boarder named William Henry Sloane who was a Presbyterian minister, two male farm servants and a female domestic. Sloane served as minister for the nearby Fourtowns Secession congregation between 1899 and 1907; no manse was purchased for the congregation until March 1901 and it appears he had not yet moved into his new abode at the time of the census. Sloane subsequently moved to Harryville, Ballymena in 1907, where he served as minister for the next 25 years; Sloane Memorial Hall was opened in his memory in 1939.

In 1910 the valuation increased to £8 10s and then to £9 10s in 1912, reflecting the addition of further outbuildings: a single-storey shed to one side of the entrance gateway, a further single-storey cattle shed to the west of the plot, and a corrugated iron Dutch barn, all of which remain on site. By the 1911 census Small's family had expanded to four sons and two daughters, and Small was working as an auctioneer in addition to farming. Accommodation at that time comprised, on the ground floor, a kitchen, scullery, pantry and two rooms, and five bedrooms on the first floor — including what was formerly maid's accommodation. The farm passed to Robert L. Wilson in 1920 and George McClements in 1921, and by the 1930s had come into the ownership of the Copeland family, successively Robert, then John from 1946 and James from 1955. The form of the house and farmyard has remained largely unchanged since the early 1900s.