Edenderry House, Banbridge Academy, Lurgan Road, Banbridge, County Down, BT32 4AQ

Edenderry House is an asymmetrical two-storey, three-bay Italianate former country house built around 1865 to designs by William Spence (c.1806–1883), a Scottish architect from Glasgow. It now serves as school offices within the grounds of Banbridge Academy, situated on the north side of Lurgan Road in Banbridge, County Down. Much original detailing and fabric survive, and the building has important historical connections with the linen industry of the area.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The house has a rectangular plan with a central break-front gable fronted by a large porch, abutted by a campanile tower. Single-storey box bay windows project to the front, a two-storey canted bay projects to the southwest, and lower two-storey extensions dating from around 1950 have been added to the northwest and northeast. The pitched roof is clad in natural slate, with ashlar chimneystack and bargeboards to the gables. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods are carried on paired bracketed eaves. The walls are built in rusticated limestone with plain ashlar sandstone dressings. Windows are replacement 1/1 timber sliding sash in moulded sandstone architraves with continuous sills; the box bay windows to the front have blind balustrades.

The principal elevation faces southeast. The central break-front bay features round-arched triple mullioned windows to the first floor set within a projecting ashlar sandstone surround. The porch is lit to its cheeks by bipartite mullioned windows in lugged surrounds and is surmounted by a balustrade on paired consoles. Within the porch, a six-panelled entrance door sits in a chamfered recess with brass door furniture and a square-headed overlight, accessed via three bull-nosed steps.

To the left side of the porch rises a square corner campanile, corbelled out from first-floor level with a projecting roof on profiled brackets, having paired round-arched windows above roof-line on two sides and an elongated window at first-floor level. The left bay has a gabled mullioned window to the first floor flanked by two diminutive windows, with a tripartite box bay window at ground-floor level. The right bay similarly has a gabled mullioned window to the first floor and a tripartite box bay to the ground floor.

The southwest gable features a two-storey ashlar sandstone canted bay lit by five windows to each floor, with the exposed section left blank. The northwest rear elevation is abutted at its centre by a two-storey extension of around 1950 in cast stone, with the exposed section again blank. The northeast elevation has a bipartite window to both ground and first floor, abutted to the right by a two-storey extension of around 1950, which has three dormer windows to the first floor and an ashlar sandstone plat-band between floors.

SETTING

The building has been incorporated into the grounds of a grammar school and is now surrounded by modern school buildings. It faces a large open playing field to the front. Access is from Lurgan Road to the south via a long tarmac drive with a set of modern metal gates at the entrance. Modern extensions and school buildings have compromised the setting of the house, though it remains a fine example of the Italianate type, alongside many others in the district.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The land on which the house stands was purchased in 1854 from William E. E. Reilly of the Reilly Estate of Scarva. A house first appears on this site on the second-edition Ordnance Survey map of 1860, depicted as an L-shaped building off the Lurgan Road north of Banbridge. The Griffith's Valuation of around 1863 records that Edenderry House was let to Thomas Ferguson by William E. E. Reilly, with the house valued at £35. New outbuildings were under construction in 1863, indicating that building work was ongoing. By 1864 the house had been revalued at £120, reflecting a radical remodelling evidenced by changes in the arrangement and number of structures shown on subsequent Ordnance Survey maps.

Thomas Ferguson was proprietor of one of the largest linen factories in Banbridge. He had established his first business in the linen trade in the 1840s and by 1855 had moved his factory to the purchased site on the Lurgan Road. He established the firm Dickson, Ferguson and Co. and adopted power loom weaving methods by 1866, expanding the factory in the process; an archway keystone to an engine room bears the date 1866. By 1860, his linen manufactory is depicted on the Ordnance Survey map as a number of buildings along the River Bann to the south of Edenderry House, valued at a total of £105. Ferguson's factory was valued at £320 around 1864, rising to a peak of £410 by the end of the Annual Revisions in 1930. Thomas Ferguson and Co. was established in 1884 after the Dicksons retired from business the previous year. In 1885 the value of Edenderry House was reduced to £90 following a reassessment that found the original valuation to be too high.

Writing in 1886, Bassett described Edenderry House as "the beautiful residence of Mr. Thomas Ferguson [which] forms one of the most conspicuous and pleasing features of the town," and noted that Thomas Ferguson and Co. employed over 300 workers, most of whom were women. Thomas Ferguson also served as a magistrate for Banbridge, appointed as Justice of the Peace. He continued to reside at Edenderry House until his death in 1900.

The house and the linen business then passed to his son Howard Ferguson. The 1901 Census records Howard Ferguson (aged 39, Presbyterian) residing at Edenderry House with his wife Jeannie and a number of servants. The Census Building Return described the house as a first-class dwelling comprising 20 rooms, with extensive out-offices including two stables, a cow house, dairy, piggery, store, laundry and a barn. Howard Ferguson remained at Edenderry House until his own death in 1941. The house was also known by the name "Ferguson's Castle." Magennis notes that Edenderry House was one of three houses built in the area by William Spence, the others being Elmfield Castle and Gilford Castle, with Edenderry House being the last of the three to be built.

Following Howard Ferguson's death in 1941, the house passed to his nephew James Dickson Ferguson, who administered the estate until 1947, when Edenderry House was sold by the Ferguson family to Banbridge Academy for £11,000. Thomas Ferguson and Co. continued to operate until 1988, when the company was sold to William Franklin and Son Ltd; the new owners continue to operate the former company under the name Ferguson's Irish Linen.

LATER HISTORY AS A SCHOOL

Banbridge Academy was established in 1786 as a private school, originally located in a house on Library Lane. During the 19th century the academy shared the premises of the Old Technical and Dunbar Memorial Schools before moving to the current site. The possible purchase of Edenderry House was discussed by the Board of Governors in 1947, and for what was described as the "paltry sum" of £11,000 they acquired forty-odd acres and the "nucleus of a fine school." Conversion and alterations were estimated at £30,000, and the school moved into its permanent home in 1950. The building was described at the time as combining "the dignity of an old mansion with the airy spaciousness of modern school buildings." The Banbridge Chronicle reported that the contractors, Messrs White and Co. of Belfast, had "performed a herculean task in bringing about the conversion." Building work continued until 1957, when a new school hall was completed to designs by Ferguson and McIlveen, with Messrs Thompson and Cherry as contractors.

Edenderry House was listed in 1977. In 1988, Education Minister Brian Mawhinney approved a £4.7 million extension plan to provide modern facilities for subjects including craft and design, technology, science and computer studies. Some older school buildings were demolished and refurbishment was carried out in Edenderry House, the science block and gymnasium, with work planned in three phases over two and a half years. The architects were WDR and RT Taggart of Belfast. Further refurbishment and extension was undertaken in the early 21st century by McAdam Design of Newtownards.