Rockvale, 56 Old Mill Road, Scarva, Banbridge, Co Down, BT63 6NL

Rockvale is a formalised vernacular dwelling of pre-1834 date, originally built as a single-storey house and raised to two storeys during the 19th century, with possible 18th century origins. It sits gable-end to Old Mill Road, set in a declivity to the south-east of Scarva village. The house is a good example of its type, demonstrating historic change while remaining in largely original condition.

The principal elevation is symmetrical, four bays wide and two storeys tall, rectangular on plan. A flat-roofed two-storey extension was added around 1950 to the rear. The roof is finished in natural slate with cement verges, and four yellow brick chimneystacks with moulded caps rise from it. Cast iron gutters are carried on a projecting eaves band.

The main elevation is dry-dashed, with rendered V-channelled quoins over a cement-rendered plinth. The remaining walls are in painted roughcast render. Windows to the principal elevation are tripartite, comprising 6-over-6 sliding sashes flanked by fixed 4-pane windows at ground floor level; at first floor they are reduced in height to 3-over-6 sashes flanked by fixed 3-pane windows, except for the central first-floor window. All windows have slightly projecting rendered reveals and granite sills, with a moulded sill course running across the first floor. The gable windows are plain 6-over-6 sashes. The rear elevation has 4-over-4 sashes except where noted, with 2-over-2 sashes and timber casements to the return.

The entrance door has four raised bolection-moulded panels and no door furniture. Its frame is raised on stone plinth blocks beneath a moulded cement architrave. The front elevation faces south-east and is five windows wide, with a 3-over-6 sash at the first-floor centre. The south-west gable has one window at first-floor left. The rear elevation has irregular fenestration and is abutted to the right of centre by the flat-roofed two-storey extension; to the right of the extension the first floor is blank, and the ground floor was not viewed. Immediately to the left of the extension there are two ground-floor windows with two first-floor windows directly above, and a further 6-over-6 window at ground-floor far left. The extension has two casement windows to the ground floor and three windows to the first floor, the central one being a diminutive casement with a raised sill. The left cheek of the extension has a timber-sheeted door; the right cheek was not viewed. The north-east gable is blank.

The house is prominently sited gable-on to the road in a rural setting, with a farmyard to the rear enclosed by a variety of single- and two-storey outbuildings that have been modernised and are of little architectural interest. To the front is a manicured garden with a tarmac forecourt accessed from the road through an alcove entrance formed by roughcast walls with saddleback coping. A pair of wrought-iron gates is supported on rendered piers with a roughcast central panel and diamond-pointed caps. A small wrought-iron gate gives access to a secondary garden at the north.

The house is associated with a corn mill on the site, which was later converted for processing flax fibres. The earliest verifiable reference to Rockvale by name occurs in the Belfast Newsletter of 15 April 1828, when Captain Magill of Rockvale was toasted at an Orange Society meeting in Ballymena. Earlier references to the name going back to 1773 cannot be linked with certainty to the current building, as other houses of that name existed in Ireland and in County Down. The house does not appear on Taylor and Skinner's 1777 map of the Roads of Ireland, possibly because it was not considered substantial enough to merit identification as a gentleman's seat. It is clearly shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834, captioned "Rockvale", as a rectangular house set at right-angles to the road with outbuildings forming three sides of a courtyard. A corn mill and kiln are also shown on the site to the west of the main house.

The Townland Valuation of 1828–40 lists the property as home to William McGill (given as "McGill" in the record), and later to William Ferguson. It is recorded as a house, offices and mill, valued at £13 17 shillings. At this period the two single-storey outbuildings were thatched. William Ferguson, described as a farmer, died in 1862. Griffith's Valuation subsequently lists Denis Chambers as occupier, leasing the property — comprising a house, offices, flax mill and over 40 acres of land — from John T. Reilly of nearby Scarva House, with the buildings valued at £23. By the time of the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1860, the former corn mill and kiln had been converted for use as a flax mill. By 1889 the buildings were recorded as "dilapidated" and the valuation was reduced to £13 5 shillings as a result.

Samuel and James Chambers, presumably sons of Denis, are listed as occupiers from 1897. The 1901 census records only Samuel Chambers and his immediate family: Samuel, a 27-year-old farmer, lived with his wife, two children aged 2 years and 10 months, and a visitor. By 1911 the family had expanded considerably to six children between the ages of 2 and 12, and they employed a domestic servant, a 17-year-old girl named Mary Greer. The house at that time had eight rooms and extensive outbuildings and was categorised as second class — a broad division covering most dwellings falling between a mansion and a thatched single- or two-room vernacular house. Samuel Chambers became the owner of his farm in 1906 under land purchase legislation.

A revaluation in 1934 assessed the house at £9, the agricultural outbuildings at £3, and the associated flax mill at £8. The house was described as comprising four bedrooms, two reception rooms, a kitchen and a scullery, and was said to be in "rather poor condition". The flax mill was worked for only one month per year and operated by means of a water wheel and an oil engine producing 20 horsepower; it contained eight stocks and crimpers. A plan and dimensions of the house and outbuildings were made at this time, showing a scullery extension to the rear. The mill was subsequently destroyed by fire and rebuilt by the Chambers family in 1946 using masonry and corrugated asbestos. The rebuilt mill contained a scutching machine and one set of rollers with five stocks for tow scutching, and obtained power from a 44-horsepower Crossley oil engine, working for three months of the year during the flax harvesting season. With the decline of large-scale flax production in Ireland as man-made fibres became more popular, the mill — though still present on the site — has in recent times been used as an agricultural outbuilding. The former corn kiln shown on the 1834 Ordnance Survey map also survives to the west of the main house and outbuildings.

The house was listed in 1977. In 1991 windows and a back door were renovated and the house was rewired. It remains in use as a dwelling.