32 Castlewellan Road, Banbridge, Co Down, BT32 4JD

32 Castlewellan Road, Banbridge, is a substantial former Presbyterian manse, built around 1895–1897 as the residence of the minister of Banbridge Non-Subscribing Church. It is a symmetrical two-storey house with attic, three bays wide, on a square plan, with single-storey extensions to the side and rear. The house sits on an elevated site north of Castlewellan Road, to the east of Banbridge town centre, and is set within its own grounds. It is an unusual building for the town, representing a good and largely intact example of robust late-Victorian domestic architecture. The property was largely renovated in the late 1960s, though much of its original historic fabric and character survives.

EXTERIOR

The roof is hipped, covered in natural slate with clay ridge and hip tiles, and fitted with replacement uPVC rainwater goods. The eaves are detailed with moulded timber brackets and plain timber soffits and fascia. The chimneys are polychromatic brick with moulded caps and tall octagonal moulded clay pots.

The walls are built in polychromatic brick laid to Flemish bond, with contrasting brick quoins and an eaves course, and a projected smooth-rendered plinth at the base. The windows are timber sliding sash with a 2-over-4 pane arrangement, irregular in configuration, set in segmental arched openings with horns and painted masonry cills. The ground floor windows have projected yellow-brick surrounds rising to a moulded cornice, with a projected apron and contrasting brick quoins; the first floor windows have contrasting brick surrounds.

The front entrance door is a timber four-panel door with brass ironmongery, fitted with a replacement tripartite overlight to which stained glass was added around 1970. The surround consists of moulded pilasters with an entablature, set within a yellow-brick segmental-arched recess, and approached by two stone steps.

ELEVATIONS

The principal elevation faces southwest and is symmetrically arranged, with the centrally positioned entrance flanked by a single window on each side, and three windows of diminished height at first floor level. The northwest elevation is asymmetrical, with two windows at both ground and first floor level arranged slightly left of centre. The rear elevation is largely plain, with a single window at ground and first floor level to the left, and is abutted by a shallow two-storey rear projection and a one-and-a-half-storey coach house. The two-storey projection is centrally placed, finished in painted smooth render, slightly wider at ground floor level with brick corbelling, and features a small segmental-arched window with casement at ground floor level and a large segmental-arched fixed six-pane landing window above. The southeast elevation is asymmetrically arranged, with painted smooth rendered walling, a ground floor window to the left, and a narrow first floor window centrally positioned.

OUTBUILDINGS

The gabled one-and-a-half-storey coach house abuts the rear right of the main house. It is built in red brick with a natural slate roof and has timber-sheeted coach entrance doors and a round-headed loading door to the gable. Openings include an elliptical-arched door addressing the enclosed courtyard. To the right of the southeast elevation is a single-storey gabled abutment with a gable chimney and a replacement uPVC window, further extended to the rear by single-storey hipped-roofed accommodation with leaded hips and ridge. The southeast face of this extension includes a modern canted bay window to the left and an abutting greenhouse to the right; the northwest face has a variety of segmental-arched openings addressing the enclosed courtyard. A further detached outbuilding lies to the north, with an overhanging hipped roof canopy and timber-sheeted sliding doors with multi-paned glazing.

SETTING

The house stands on an elevated site that is partially visible from the main road, though modern dwellings built in front now obscure much of the view. The site is entered through octagonal masonry piers carrying robust decorative wrought-iron gates with castings, and a sweeping driveway leads to the forecourt. There are gardens to the front and sides of the house and a concrete yard to the rear. A secondary gated entrance to the east is formed by a single wrought-iron gate between concrete piers. The rear courtyard is enclosed by brick walling and entered through timber-sheeted gates set between smooth-rendered piers with plinths and moulded caps; it is laid with concrete flags.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The current building is the second house to stand on this site. The first was constructed around 1863–1864 on land that had previously been used as a bleaching green by Robert Fennell & Co., a linen manufacturing business owned by Samuel Hill of Solitude House. The plot was leased by the Non-Subscribing Presbyterian congregation of Banbridge, and the first dwelling was first recorded in the Annual Revisions of 1864, valued at £37. The first occupant was a Mr Alfred Hodgkinson, who was not a minister of the church; the incumbent at that time was the Reverend John Montgomery. The Reverend Francis McCammon became the first minister to occupy the house in 1868, having succeeded Montgomery following the latter's death in 1867. McCammon served the Banbridge congregation for eighteen years until his own death on 28th October 1886. The house was briefly occupied by the Reverend Charles Quail in 1888, and by 1892 the Reverend Andrew Breakey Hamilton had come into possession of the property.

It was during Hamilton's occupancy that the original 1860s building was demolished and replaced by the current polychromatic-brick manse. The new building was complete by 1897 and, despite the greater scale and quality of the new construction, the rateable value of the site fell from £37 to £29. The manse appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of around 1900, already showing the two single-storey rear returns in their present configuration. The 1901 Census describes the manse as a first-class private dwelling containing eight rooms, with out-offices to the rear including a stable, two cow houses, a dairy, piggery, barn and stores. At that time the Reverend Andrew Hamilton (aged 43) lived there with his wife Annie (aged 46) and their two daughters. Hamilton died in July 1905 and was succeeded by the Reverend Edgar Lockett, who resided at the manse with his wife Bessie (aged 39) and their three infant sons at the time of the 1911 Census. Lockett remained until 1914, when the Reverend James Davies took occupation; he was in turn succeeded in 1922 by the Reverend Percival Godding. Godding served as minister of Banbridge Non-Subscribing Church and also as editor of Challenge magazine, a Belfast-based Unitarian publication printed until the 1950s. He remained in post at least until 1930, the last year covered by the surviving Annual Revisions.

The associated Non-Subscribing Church was erected around 1845 on the Downshire Road to the northwest. It was described by the architectural historian C.E.B. Brett as "one of the last and best of the classical Presbyterian Churches of Ulster" to be constructed. The church was listed in 1976. The manse itself had been vacant and in poor condition for nearly ten years before being sold in 1967 to its present private owners. In 1888, the architectural firm Young & Mackenzie had advertised tenders for repair work to the church, and the construction of the current manse around that same period may have formed part of a broader programme of works to the congregation's properties.