Union Lodge, 8 Carricknaveagh Road, Boardmills, Lisburn, County Down, BT27 6UB

Union Lodge is a remarkably well-preserved single-storey four-bay vernacular farmhouse with outbuildings, built around 1800 and situated on the south side of Carricknaveagh Road in Boardmills, Lisburn. It stands as a good example of a type of vernacular house and outbuildings that was once common in rural Ulster but is now increasingly rare. The listing extends to the house, outbuildings, boundary walls, gates and stile.

ARCHITECTURE

The farmhouse is asymmetrical in plan, rectangular in form, with a full-width extension to the rear set under a catslide roof at a slightly shallower pitch than the main range. The roof is finished in natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles and three yellow brick chimneystacks without pots. Rainwater goods are cast-iron half-round section. The external walls are pebbledash with a smooth rendered plinth and quoins; the south gable is smooth rendered. Window surrounds are also smooth rendered with projecting sills, and on the principal elevation the plaster surrounds have pointed headed tops with crossettes — a small but distinctive decorative touch appropriate to the vernacular style.

The principal elevation faces west and is four openings wide, arranged asymmetrically. Windows are timber-framed 6-over-6 sliding sashes. To the right of centre is a timber-sheeted entrance door with a cast-iron knocker and knob; above it is a transom light with two vertical glazing bars and a dog-tooth cross member, all set within a smooth rendered surround with a pointed head and crossettes. The north elevation is blank.

The east elevation is abutted by the full-width rear extension, which sits on a gently sloping site. It features a timber-sheeted latch door to the centre; directly to the left is a pair of 2-over-2 side-hung windows; to the far left is a side-hung 1-over-1 window; and to the far right are diminutive 2-over-2 sliding sash windows set in a timber mullioned surround.

OUTBUILDINGS AND FARMYARD

A variety of single-storey painted rubble stone outbuildings are arranged around a farmyard to the south of the house, with a textured concrete road surface. These are well-preserved and of similar character to the farmhouse.

The east range consists of two adjoining single-storey buildings: the northern building is roofed in artificial slate and tin, and the southern in natural slate; both have painted sheeted timber doors. The south outbuilding is a tall single-storey structure with a tin roof, sheeted timber doors, and metal six-pane windows to its north elevation. To the west of the farmyard is a small outbuilding with a tin-over-thatch roof, painted sheeted timber doors, and a small timber window to the east.

The farmyard is enclosed to the north, east, and west by rubblestone boundary walls with fieldstone coping. To the east of the farmyard, at the boundary with Carricknaveagh Road, is a stone stile with gate and piers consisting of two round stone pillars with conical stone caps and a rubblestone wall with two stone steps built in at each side. The original gate has been replaced with a modern tubular steel farm gate.

SETTING

The property occupies a rural setting on a narrow country road surrounded by farmland. The front boundary to the road is formed by a low painted rubble stone wall. To the northwest, a decorative wrought-iron gate and latch-gate with square piers and pointed caps give access to the front of the house via a gravelled path and driveway. A painted tubular farm gate to the northeast gives access to the rear of the property and yard. To the front of the house is a lawned garden with a small hedge maze, enclosed to the yard side by a rubble stone wall and a decorative wrought-iron latch-gate.

HISTORY

The farmhouse and all three of its current farm buildings first appear on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834, depicted in their current layout. The building is almost certainly earlier than this, however; the name "Union Lodge" strongly suggests it was constructed around the time of the Act of Union in 1800.

The Townland Valuation of around 1830 records the farm as occupied by the Reverend John Sturgeon, very likely the same Reverend John Sturgeon who was incumbent of Trinity Presbyterian Church in the nearby village of Boardmills. The farm subsequently passed to Robert Sturgeon in the 1830s, at which time the house and its three outbuildings were valued at £4 13s. 1d. The valuer described the property as a "very neat old cottage, avenue and gate approach [which was] very neat" and recorded that Sturgeon held the farm from the Marquis of Downshire at a rent of £2 8s. 5d. per annum.

The first recorded use of the name "Union Lodge" appears in an 1860 will belonging to a Miss Jane Sturgeon, a spinster who had resided with Robert Sturgeon until her death that year. By the time of Griffith's Valuation in 1861, the farm had increased in value to £5 10s. By around 1860 a second house had been built in the northeast corner of the farm, visible on the second and third edition Ordnance Survey maps (1859 to around 1900); Robert Sturgeon let this second house, valued at £1 and also used as a workshop, to lodgers from 1861. It had been demolished by 1911 and does not appear on the 1920 edition of the Ordnance Survey map.

Robert Sturgeon remained at Union Lodge until his death on 30 November 1899, leaving the farm and effects valued at £608 13s. to his daughter Jane T. Sturgeon. The 1901 Census records that Jane, then aged 57, lived at Union Lodge with her brother John Sturgeon, a 48-year-old retired Presbyterian minister, and their sister Catherine, aged 55. The census building return confirms that the cottage and its outbuildings were originally thatched; all have since had their thatch replaced with slate or tin roofs. Between 1901 and 1911, the three outbuildings surrounding the cottage were recorded in use as stables, a cow house, a piggery, a fowl house, a barn, and a potato house, with the stables located in the west outbuilding.

In 1913, Jane Sturgeon purchased the farm from the Marquis of Downshire. The property passed out of the Sturgeon family in 1923, when a Miss Susanna Hamilton took possession and resided there until at least the end of that year's Annual Revisions. The house has been restored by its current owner over the five years prior to listing.