Knock House, 46 Lisnacroppan Road, Edengarry, Rathfiland, Banbridge, Co Down, BT32 5DA

Knock House is a substantial two-storey three-bay farmhouse built around 1830, located on an elevated site on Lisnacroppan Road between Banbridge and Rathfriland in County Down. The building is L-shaped on plan, aligned east-west, with an attached two-storey outbuilding to its north-west. It represents the architectural transition from Georgian symmetry and proportion to the more robust ornamentation of the later nineteenth century.

The house has a natural slate roof, hipped at the angle between the main block and outbuilding, and gabled to the north and west, with blue-black ridge and hip tiles. The chimneysstacks are rendered with moulded caps and terracotta pots. Cast-iron rainwater goods sit on corbelled stone eaves. The walling is ruled-and-lined rendered over a plinth, unpainted, with reticulated quoins and lintel blocks.

The principal elevation faces south and is five openings wide at each floor, symmetrically arranged about a central square-headed opening surmounted by reticulated voussoirs and a basket-of-fruit motif in render, with plain reveals. The door is a replacement with four bolection moulded pointed panels and no knob, with matching sidelights featuring glazed upper panels and a three-part transom with obscured glazing. Access is via a granite step. Windows throughout are 6/6 timber sashes with exposed sash boxes and horns, all with projecting granite cills.

The west gable is almost completely abutted by the outbuilding. The rear elevation returns at the left side; the right side has two windows to the ground floor and two closely spaced windows to the first floor. The return has a single gable window set to the right at ground floor, with a rear entrance door to the right cheek and a window above. The east elevation has two windows to each floor, offset to the right.

The house is set on an elevated site in a rural setting, bounded to the road by a rendered boundary wall with a set-back entrance having a pair of cast-iron gates on square piers with deep rectangular panels and stepped caps. The driveway no longer exists, though vestiges of a mud track remain, probably leading to a former forecourt. A sloping garden with double terrace to the south overlooks neighbouring farmland and the surrounding countryside, bounded by a tree-lined farm lane at the west leading to agricultural land. A concrete farmyard to the north is enclosed by a single-storey monopitched outbuilding to the east and a two-storey barn and stable range to the north. Modern farm buildings occupy a secondary farmyard to the north.

The house and its associated traditionally constructed outbuildings and entrance gates form a group of note, demonstrating the prosperous nature of a nineteenth-century farm, despite extensive modernisation.

Historical Development

The house and a one-and-a-half-storey barn to its north appear on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833, indicating construction prior to that date. In 1862, Griffith's Valuation recorded Robert McDowell, a local farmer, occupying the site. McDowell leased the property from John S. Crawford, a landowner based in Crawfordsburn who owned 5,748 acres in the area; the house and its out offices were valued at £10 in 1862.

By 1864, Robert McDowell had either died or vacated the site, and his relative Joseph McDowell, likely his son, became occupant of the farm. In 1871, Joseph's nephew Robert James McDowell was recorded as joint occupant. In 1873, the pair carried out a series of alterations to the site, including the erection of additional outbuildings and the construction of the two-storey outbuilding abutting the north-west gable of the house, first seen on the 1903 Ordnance Survey map. This work increased the farm's valuation to £14, at which it remained until 1929.

Joseph McDowell continued to live at the farm until his death in 1901, when sole occupation passed to Robert James McDowell, who was noted in the Ulster Town Directories as a Justice of the Peace for the area as well as a farmer. The 1901 Census recorded Robert, aged 67 and Presbyterian, residing at the site with his sister Isabella, aged 75, employed as a seamstress. The Census Building Return described Knock House as a first-class dwelling consisting of 16 rooms, a figure reduced to 14 rooms in the 1911 return.

Robert McDowell remained at Knock House until his death in 1920, when the farm passed to Andrew Ray McDowell, an unknown relative. Andrew McDowell briefly occupied the house but vacated by 1927, when Joseph McRoberts, the last occupant recorded in the Annual Revisions, took over the site. The house was not referred to as 'Knock House' until the third edition of the Ordnance Survey maps in 1903. The property was listed in 1977 and continues to be occupied.