Lisnacreevey House, 80 Lisnacroppin Road, Rathfriland, Co Down, BT34 5NZ

Lisnacreevey House is a detached, asymmetrical, rendered farmhouse of two storeys with attic, built around 1820 and subsequently enlarged and altered on several occasions over the following decades. It stands on an elevated, mature site on the south side of Lisnacroppin Road, facing east, and is U-shaped on plan. The southernmost bay was added around 1850, a pair of gabled rear projections around 1860, and a full-height canted bay window — which further emphasises the asymmetry of the front façade — may also be a late Victorian addition. The house has been extensively modified over two centuries and was renovated during the late 20th century with some loss of original fabric, though much historic material and detailing survives, reflecting the changing circumstances, accommodation needs, and tastes of successive owners.

The roof is pitched natural slate, hipped to the south, with black clay ridge tiles and three rendered chimneystacks topped with octagonal clay pots. The canted bay has its own hipped natural slate roof with rolled lead ridges. Rainwater goods throughout are replacement plastic, fixed to a rendered eaves course. The walls are finished in smooth cement render with a recessed smooth rendered plinth course. Window openings are square-headed throughout, fitted with granite sills and replacement 6/6 timber sash windows.

The front elevation is four bays wide, abutted by the off-centre full-height canted bay window, with granite flagstones lining the plinth at ground level. The entrance is formed by an elliptical-headed door opening fitted with a replacement tripartite timber doorcase inserted around 1980, incorporating a webbed fanlight and tracery sidelights. The door opens onto a granite platform with a wrought-iron bootscraper to the front gravel area.

The south side elevation is four windows wide and is abutted by late 20th-century single-storey extensions. The upper right window opening contains a timber Wyatt window. To the left is a single-bay, single-storey side entrance porch with a hipped slate roof, a replacement sash window, and a replacement timber panelled door opening onto a short flight of granite steps.

The rear elevation comprises two full-height gabled projections at either end with a recessed central section two windows wide, forming a small rear patio finished with clay tiles. The recessed section contains a stair hall window and an enlarged ground-floor opening fitted with replacement timber French doors. The southern projection has a diminutive first-floor window with a replacement 4/4 timber sash window and a further replacement 6/6 timber sash stair hall window. The north gabled projection is surmounted by a rendered chimneystack and has a replacement timber Wyatt window at ground floor level and two attic windows with replacement 4/4 timber sash windows.

The north side elevation has a gable to the left with irregular fenestration and a single-bay section to the right. Windows are largely replacement 6/6 timber sash, and there is a later door opening with replacement timber French doors opening onto a granite-paved area.

The site is mainly accessed from the north via a short gravel driveway that passes the rear elevation of the house and the first range of outbuildings. The front avenue, recently reinstated, curves to the north-east through the large front garden and meets the road through a pair of replacement iron gates supported on angled rendered piers with granite capstones, flanked by sweeping rendered walls. The setting includes mature planting and two ranges of outbuildings enclosing a yard to the rear.

The house pre-dates the first Ordnance Survey map of 1833, which shows a collection of around half a dozen buildings on the site, one of which survives as the Georgian core of the current dwelling. Some of the outbuildings may also date from this period, though their number and arrangement had changed significantly by the time of the second edition map of 1853, and one outbuilding bears a datestone recording a rebuild in 1846. The Townland Valuation of 1828 to 1840 records the house as the property of John Corbitt, with buildings valued at £11. The slated house is recorded as measuring 44 by 26.6 by 19 feet, with five thatched outbuildings. John Corbitt died in 1839, as noted in the Belfast Newsletter, and the property passed through the family to Robert Swan Corbitt, who is recorded as the occupier in Griffith's Valuation of 1856 to 1864. By the second edition OS map of 1853, the house had been extended by a wing to the south and captioned as "Lisnacreevy House", with only three outbuildings shown to the rear. Robert Swan Corbitt leased the house, valued at £15, from the representatives of William Sharman Crawford, the local landowner, at a rent of £50 per annum on a plot of over 73 acres. Measurements are given for the house and its addition, and for four slated outbuildings, two of which are double-height.

Robert Swan Corbitt was a prominent local figure: appointed to the magistracy in 1872, he stood as Unionist candidate for Down in 1886. He was also a keen huntsman and is recorded as president of the Rathfriland Greyhound Coursing Club in 1887. The Iveagh and Newry Harriers frequently met at Lisnacreevy House. The first Annual Revision of the valuation in the mid-1860s raised the assessed value to £22 15s. By the third edition OS map of 1903, the main house had been extended to the rear and the outbuildings further extended and modified. The 1901 census records Robert Corbitt — magistrate, farmer, and flax and corn-mill owner — living there with his wife, two adult children, and two domestic servants, one of whom was a 14-year-old boy. The house was classified as first class and had fifteen rooms. Corbitt became the owner in fee under land purchase legislation in 1910. The 1911 census shows the domestic staff had grown to include a further general domestic and a saddler, and also reveals that only two of the couple's five children had survived. Corbitt's son, John G. Corbitt, took over the farm in 1919, presumably on his father's death. Valuers' notes from the 1930s record the accommodation as comprising two attic rooms, three reception rooms, a flush WC, a boxroom, five bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen, a scullery, and a pantry, described as having a very good finish. A plan attached to the valuers' notes shows that since the 1930s some of the structures surrounding the stable yard, mostly to the western end, had been demolished. The house passed out of the Corbitt family in 1938 when it was taken over by Archibald Creen, and subsequently by Thomas Creen in 1947. It remains in use as a private dwelling.