Moorlands, 100 Castlewellan Road, Banbridge, Co. Down, BT32 4JD

Moorlands is a detached two-storey-with-attic rubble stone house of around 1860, situated on a large mature site on the north side of Castlewellan Road, southeast of Banbridge town centre. It is a good and largely intact example of a linen merchant's house from this part of County Down, and the listing extends to the house itself, its outbuildings, the Victorian greenhouse, and the original entrance screen.

ARCHITECTURE

The house is built to a symmetrical plan, five bays wide to the principal east-facing elevation. The walling is random rubble stone with raised granite quoins and red-brick dressings. The roof is hipped natural slate with leaded hips and rendered chimneystacks carrying terracotta pots. Rainwater goods are cast-iron ogee-profile on paired brackets.

Windows throughout the main house are 6/6 timber sliding sash with granite sills set in red-brick surrounds with rendered reveals. A single-storey projecting porch stands centrally on the principal elevation, detailed to match the house. It has a window to each cheek wall, ovolo-moulded eaves and blocking course, and a double-leaf three-panel timber door with brass door furniture reached by a granite step.

The south elevation is four bays wide to both ground and first floor and has a hipped wall-head dormer centrally at attic level. At ground floor left is a metal multi-paned canted bay window with an overlight, and a door to the central opening is reached by a flight of steps.

The west rear elevation is abutted to the north by a later two-storey extension of lower height, and to the west by a modern timber conservatory. The two-storey extension has varied fenestration including two 1/1 leaded-and-stained glass timber sash windows at first floor. The north elevation has two windows at both first and ground floor levels, a half-panelled timber door with sidelights and an overlight, three 1/1 leaded-and-stained glass windows at first floor right, a single window at first floor left, a 1/1 window at ground floor right, and a half-panelled timber door with a square-headed overlight.

SETTING

The house stands on a large mature site, parts of which have been developed with private housing to the north and south, though views and aspect are generally unaffected. A tarmacadam driveway leads to a gravelled front concourse, with a yard to the north accessed through a timber-sheeted door. There is a lawned garden to the south and west, the west garden enclosed by a modern brick boundary wall. A stone balustrade and a Victorian greenhouse with decorative terracotta ridge tiles stand in the west garden. The yard to the north contains two fine two-storey rubble-stone barns with red-brick dressings, each with a variety of timber-sheeted doors and timber-casement windows set within relieving arches. Many original features and materials of good quality survive throughout the house, though there is some evidence of later remodelling.

HISTORY

According to Rankin, Moorlands was constructed around 1840 by George Crawford Lindsay, a local linen manufacturer whose father John Lindsay resided at Tullyhenan House in Mullafernaghan. The house first appears on the second edition of the Ordnance Survey map of 1860, which shows the main dwelling and two outbuildings, one to the north and one to the west side of the house. The Griffith's Valuation of around 1862 recorded George Lindsay as owner, with the house valued at £53; he also let out a large number of smaller properties in the townland of Ballydown. By the Annual Revisions of 1864, the value had fallen slightly to £49, for reasons not recorded.

George Crawford Lindsay continued to reside at Moorlands until his death in 1885, at which point the house and his estate of £15,000 passed to members of his family. By 1887 the Annual Revisions recorded that his sons John Crawford Lindsay and Walter Lindsay, together with his nephews George Crawford Lindsay and John Lindsay, had taken joint possession of Moorlands. By 1899 the house had been let to John Simms, a hemstitching manufacturer who had previously resided at Parkmount House. This change of occupancy coincided with a reduction in the property's valuation to £30, at which it remained until the end of the Annual Revisions in 1929.

The 1901 Census records John Simms (aged 82, Church of Ireland) living at Moorlands with his wife and his widowed daughter Antonia Simms, among others. The Census Building Return described it as a first-class dwelling of fifteen rooms. By the time of the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1903, the site had developed considerably since 1860: a western extension had been added, giving the house its distinctive U-shaped plan; the Victorian greenhouse had been erected to the west of this extension; and the two-storey outbuilding to the north-west had also been constructed.

John Simms died in 1911 and the house passed to his daughter Antonia. The 1911 Census records Antonia (aged 58) living at Moorlands with her son David and his wife; David Simms was then operating his grandfather's hemstitching factory. The Census Outbuilding Return for 1911 lists a stable, two coach houses, a cowhouse, dairy, and a barn within the two-storey outbuildings to the north of the house. Antonia Simms died in 1925 and the house passed to David; he did not reside there, and by the 1930s Moorlands was recorded as the property of Joseph Morton, who also owned Enville House on the Castlewellan Road.

The wider commercial background to the house lies in the Crawford and Lindsay families' involvement in the textile industry. In 1822 the two families took over the Ballydown Weaving Company and Bleachworks, formerly owned by William Hudson, and established Crawford & Lindsay, which operated until around 1918. It was one of the most successful textile companies along the River Bann in the 19th century, employing over 400 people in 1884 including 250 hand-loom weavers, with a power loom factory in Newtownards and offices in London. Moorlands was built during the prosperous early years of this enterprise.

Further alterations to the house between 1930 and 1974 resulted in its current square plan layout. All outbuildings shown on the 1903 Ordnance Survey map survive. A modern single-storey conservatory was added to the west side after 1974. Moorlands was listed in 1977 and remains in use as a private dwelling.