Crossan House, Crossan Road, Crossan, Lisburn, County Down, BT27 6XH

Crossan House is a two-storey, four-bay mid-nineteenth-century farmhouse located to the north side of Crossan Road near Lisburn, County Down. Rectangular on plan with a porch to the front and a two-storey return to the rear, the building was substantially remodelled around 1930 and has since suffered from neglect, though much of the exterior fabric remains intact.

The main south-facing elevation has four openings at both ground and first-floor levels, though the right-hand bay is a later addition with openings set at some distance from the original arrangement. The original openings are centred around a later porch, which features a double-panelled timber entrance door with a leaded and stained glass pane to the upper portion. Windows comprise 1/1 timber-framed sliding sashes to the ground floor and 1/2 sashes with sidelights to the first floor, all set in smooth rendered reveals with projecting masonry sills; metal-framed windows serve the rear elevation. The walling is pebbledashed with cement render quoins and plinth. The porch itself is English garden wall bonded red-brick with a masonry canopy. The half-hipped natural slate roof carries blue and black angled ridge tiles, with yellow brick chimneystacks and terracotta pots, though the chimneys have been replaced. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods and hoppers complete the principal fittings.

The west elevation is blank. The north (rear) elevation is abutted to the right of centre by a two-storey return under a catslide roof, containing a window to each floor, and to the left a timber-sheeted door in a painted masonry surround with keyblock. The exposed section to the left has two windows at first-floor level; the ground floor contains a window to the right and a timber-sheeted door with an adjoining window in a rendered surround. The east elevation is blank.

An extension was added to the east side in the mid-twentieth century, introducing a half-hipped roof to that section of the building.

The outbuildings to the north are constructed of rubble stone with roughcast render and are arranged in an L-shape around a central yard. The western block has a corrugated metal roof, three metal windows, a large opening to the left with a corrugated metal screen, a timber-sheeted door at the centre, and a timber-sheeted half-door to the far right. The northern block features a pitched natural slate roof with black angled ridge tiles, two timber-sheeted half-doors and one timber-sheeted door, a window to the right with timber boarding and a brick sill, and a large segmental-headed entrance to the east gable accessed via a laneway from Crossan Road. One of the outbuildings is slated.

The setting is rural, situated on a narrow country road. A curved pebbledashed boundary wall to the south and east, mirroring the house design, has a masonry plinth and curved coping stones. To the east wall are square gate piers with pointed masonry caps supporting an original wrought-iron farm gate. Centred to the front of the house are square gate piers with pointed caps and a decorative wrought-iron garden gate, with a gravelled pathway leading to the entrance porch. A garden to the west is enclosed by mature trees and hedgerow, accessed through a decorative wrought-iron garden gate. A tarmacadamed driveway to the east leads to the rear yard, with gate piers surmounted by ball finials on a plinth. Much of this ironmongery is original.

A building on the current site first appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834, depicted as an oblong building with a large rear return occupying the site of the current stable outbuilding. The current house is certainly that shown on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1859. According to Griffith's Valuation, Crossan House was occupied in 1861 by William Harvey, a Presbyterian farmer who leased the property and land from the Marquis of Downshire. The house was then valued at £8 and operated as a farm. William Harvey lived at Crossan House until his death in 1898, leaving effects of £691 0s 4d to his son William Samuel Harvey. The 1901 census shows that while William Samuel Harvey did not occupy the house, he was recorded as the landholder, and later purchased the property from the Marquis of Downshire by 1913. Crossan House continued to be occupied by Mary Harvey, widow of William Harvey Senior, who in 1901, aged 74, operated the farm with her daughter Maggie, aged 35, assisted by a domestic servant and two farm servants. By 1911 the farm was maintained with at least five farm hands. The 1901 census building return records Crossan House as a first-class dwelling consisting of five rooms; the 1911 return notes it possessed nine inhabited rooms. Between 1859 and 1920 the farm was greatly expanded with the construction of a second rear stable block to the north of the house. The 1911 census records that apart from the stables, the farm buildings to the rear housed a cow house, piggery, fowl house, potato house and barn. Maggie Harvey occupied the house until 1922, when Joseph McIlveen came into possession of the farm, which he occupied until the end of the Annual Revisions in 1929. The original nineteenth-century building was remodelled around 1930, possibly when McIlveen acquired the property. Crossan House currently lies vacant and in a poor state of repair.