Carn House, Charlestown Road, Carn, Portadown, Craigavon, County Armagh, BT63 5PP

Carn House is a two-storey farmhouse situated on the east side of Charlestown Road, roughly two miles north of Portadown, set within a spacious garden and accompanied by a large collection of outbuildings. The house has an L-shaped plan, comprising a formal late Georgian front block of approximately 1810–20 and a long, low return wing set roughly on an east–west axis. The present house is shown on the Ordnance Survey map of 1835, and a valuation of the following year records it as a well-maintained slated house of at least twenty years old, occupied by a Mr Wilson Irwin, with dimensions of 46 feet by 24½ feet by 17 feet and 18½ feet by 21 feet by 12½ feet, with single and two-storey slated and thatched outbuildings. The rateable value in 1836 was £10-7-0. As is the case with many farmhouses of this plan type with pre-1830s returns, it is possible that the return predates the formal front block, and the current owner believes this to be the case, though no documentary evidence has been found to confirm it.

The front block faces west and is gabled, as is the return. At the east end of the return there is a single-storey brick-built gabled outbuilding of the later 19th century, with a larger freestanding outbuilding to the south of it of similar date and construction. Further outbuildings of various dates lie to the south, whilst a large garden extends to the north of the house.

The front face of the main block is a typical three-bay late Georgian composition. At the centre of the ground floor is the main entrance, consisting of a plain timber sheeted door beneath a segmental fanlight with Adamesque swag moulding to the lintel and spider's web tracery to the fanlight. The doorway is set within a coved semicircular-arched reveal of typically Regency character, with moulded edging. To the left of the doorway is a flat-arched window opening with a painted stone cill, a cement-rendered eared and heeled surround dating from the early 1900s, and a replacement uPVC frame, installed in 1994. To the right of the entrance is an identical window. Three similar but shorter windows occupy the first floor. The front face of the front block is finished in pebbledash, with cement-rendered in-and-out quoins, base course, eaves course and window surrounds. The other facades of the front block are finished in lined cement render with similar quoins.

The north gable of the front block has a window to the left at first-floor level, matching those on the front but without a surround. At attic level to the left there is a tiny fixed-light window with a two-pane timber frame. The south gable has a window to the right at ground-floor level and a similar but shorter window directly above it at first-floor level, both matching those on the north gable. At attic level to the right there is a much smaller single-pane window.

The return abuts the right-hand, south side of the rear face of the front block. Attached to the centre and north side of this rear face is a two-storey lean-to projection finished in roughcast. To the east face of this lean-to there is a ground-floor doorway with a half-glazed timber door, and above it a small window with a two-over-two timber sash frame. To the north face of the lean-to there is a ground-floor window with a three-over-six Georgian-paned timber sash frame and a smaller first-floor window with a three-over-three sash frame. To the right of the ground floor on the north face of the front block itself there is a window matching that on the ground floor of the south gable.

The return has an informal and varied arrangement of openings reflecting its different phases of construction. To the left on the ground floor of the south face there are two identical windows, each with six-over-six Georgian-paned timber sash frames, with two similar but smaller three-over-three sash windows directly above them at first-floor level. To the right on the ground floor there is a lean-to open porch with a large opening to the front, a large window with a modern timber frame to its immediate left, and a larger frameless opening to the right. To the west face of the porch there is a smaller window with a modern three-pane timber frame. Within the porch, against the actual face of the return, there is a timber sheeted door to the left, then a window with a Georgian-paned three-over-six timber sash frame, then a doorway with a half-glazed timber door, and then, beyond a partition, another window matching the previous. At first-floor level directly above the porch projection there are two small Georgian-paned three-over-three sash windows. The south face of the return is finished in lined cement render, though the porch projection is finished in a mixture of cement render, roughcast and painted brick.

The north face of the return has three unevenly spaced windows on each floor, those to the first floor being considerably smaller. All have Georgian-paned timber sash frames: three-over-six to the ground floor and three-over-three to the first floor. This face is finished in roughcast.

The single-storey outbuilding attached to the east end of the return is in painted brick. Its south face has three window openings, now largely boarded up, with a timber sheeted door set between the first and second windows. The north face has three windows: the left-hand one is smaller with a three-over-six Georgian-paned timber sash frame; the middle one retains the dilapidated remains of an Edwardian-style timber casement frame with three fixed panes above; and the right-hand one is boarded up. The west-facing gable has a very small four-pane timber-framed window set at low level to the right.

All sections of the roof are slated. There are rendered chimneystacks to the gables of the front block and one tall rendered stack positioned roughly to the west of centre on the ridge of the return. The rainwater goods appear to be largely uPVC. The front garden is enclosed by a low roughcast-rendered wall with a hedge above. The wall contains a small pedestrian gateway with pebbledash-rendered piers. To the south of the house there are several large outbuildings with curved roofs, which appear to be of Belfast Truss construction, though this was not confirmed.

Much of the original interior detailing has been removed. One ground-floor room has the appearance of having once served as an office.

The history of the property can be traced through the valuation records in some detail. The second valuation of 1862, when John Irwin was the resident, records one section of the return at seven yards by six and another at four yards by three and single-storey, suggesting that the return may not have been entirely two-storey at the time of the 1836 valuation, or alternatively that a large part of it was then used as an outbuilding. The differing window levels of the return also point to various stages of construction. The rateable value had risen to £17-10-0 by 1862. In 1867 the addition of a new store, possibly the brick-built section at the east end of the return, prompted a rise of £2; the value reached £22 by 1876 and £25 the following year. John Irwin appears to have died in 1884, but the house remained in the hands of his representatives until 1889, when a George Sloan is recorded as occupant. The building was back with the Irwin family by approximately 1900 and remained so until 1915, when a Hamilton Robb took up the lease. Between 1915 and 1926 Robb sub-let the land and outbuildings and is only periodically listed as occupant of the house, his periods of residence alternating with a Henry Goldsmith between 1915 and 1923 and with a Reverend Albert O. Draper between 1923 and 1926. In 1929 the property is recorded as vacant.

The present owner's family began to lease the land and outbuildings in or just before 1929 and acquired the house shortly afterwards. The present owner states that the property once served as a coal yard and possesses a brass nameplate reading "Registered Offices Portadown Coal Carrying Co. Ltd. — Carriers / Coal Merchants". The plate appears to date from the early 1900s and may relate to the period after 1915 and the sub-letting of the land and outbuildings, though no company of this name is specifically mentioned in the valuation books during this period. It is uncertain whether this company held both the house and the outbuildings, but if they did occupy the dwelling it could explain the appearance of one ground-floor room as a former office.

The property has suffered a number of unsuitable alterations over the years, including the application of pebbledash and cement render to the exterior and the introduction of uPVC window frames, with those to the front block installed in 1994.