29 Church Hill, Lambeg North, Lisburn, Co.Antrim, BT27 4SB

29 Church Hill is a rare surviving example of a late 17th-century house, built around 1680, located on the south side of Church Hill in Lambeg, County Antrim. It forms one half of a semi-detached pair with the adjoining No. 27 Church Hill, the two buildings together once forming a four-bay house that may originally have been part of a larger terrace. The house retains its original style, proportions and simple detailing, along with original roofing and walling materials. It sits within the Lambeg Area of Village Character and contributes significantly to the architectural and historic heritage of the Lisburn area.

The building is single-bay, two-storey with an attic storey, roughly square on plan, and faces north. It is constructed in rough-cast render throughout, with rubble stone visible at ground level. The roof is a pitched natural slate roof with gauged slates, with a catslide roof at the same pitch to the rear, black clay ridge tiles, and a pair of shared red brick chimneystacks to the east. Cast-iron rainwater goods are carried on iron drive-through brackets. Window openings are square-headed with painted masonry sills and 20th-century timber sash windows. The single-bay two-storey front elevation features single-pane timber sash windows.

To the west, the gable is abutted by a single-storey extension. This extension has timber casement windows at attic level, a single-pane timber sash window to the first floor, and a 6/6 timber sash window to the ground floor. A slated canopy covers the door opening on this single-storey extension. To the south, the single-storey rear elevation abuts the semi-circular stair tower of the adjacent house, with a small square-headed window opening fitted with a casement window, and a square-headed door opening adjacent to the tower with a timber plank door. A further door opening to the south of the extension has a flat-panelled timber door and a timber casement window. A boundary wall to the road and a raking wall at the west gable complete the setting; both are of brick and rubble construction with rough-cast render.

Internally, some original timber joinery survives, including a timber winder stair with paired newel posts and some original architraves — features that suggest an early construction date. A downstairs beam has been dated to 1640, raising the possibility that parts of the structure are earlier still, though the beam may have been reused.

The history of the house is closely bound up with the Wolfenden family, reputed to have been of Dutch extraction and said to have settled in Lambeg following the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs record that the house "was built by some of the Wolfenden family above 100 years ago and remained in their possession up to a late period." A map of 1726 shows the plot as belonging to Richard Wolfenden, though the document is not sufficiently clear to confirm whether the house itself is depicted. The Gentleman's Magazine of 1829 records the death of John Wolfenden of "Lagan-hill" on 28 September 1829, and it is possible that this was an earlier name for the present house. By the late 1830s the house is recorded as "Lagan Lodge."

The Wolfenden family played a prominent role in establishing the linen and woollen industries in the area. As described by Marshall in his history of Lambeg, they helped establish linen manufacture in the neighbourhood at the close of the 17th or beginning of the 18th century and owned extensive bleach greens. Early in the 18th century they established a blanket factory on the River Road, and also built the Lambeg Tuck Mill for thickening woollen blankets, owned by Thomas Wolfenden in 1787. Their goods were of such quality that they sold widely in the English market and commanded premium prices in Dublin. At their peak they employed around one hundred people, but the death of the proprietor and the removal of younger family members to Dublin led to the closure of the works around 1825. Marshall also records an unconfirmed tradition that the Wolfenden family rebuilt the church in 1737.

The Townland Valuation of 1828–40 lists the house as the residence of Robert Wilson, with a house and offices valued at £10 15s, and gives dimensions for the house, a return, and two outbuildings. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs describe it at this period as "Lagan Lodge, the seat of Robert Willson Esquire," an oblong two-storey slated building with good offices, a tolerably large garden enclosed by a quickset hedge, and a demesne of around fourteen English acres bounded to the east by the River Lagan and to the west by the road, the house commanding a fine prospect of the surrounding neighbourhood.

By the time of Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64, the house had come into the property of Jonathan Richardson MP, who lived at the nearby Lambeg House and was a cousin of his neighbour Jonathan Richardson of Glenmore. Both were involved in the linen bleaching business. By this stage the house had been divided into four separate lots, described initially as "tenements" and then as a "cottier's house," and appears to have provided housing for managers and/or workers at the bleaching works. The main house, valued at £10, was occupied by Thomas Stewart and others, with further units at £2, £1 5s and £1 occupied by James McClean, Nathaniel White and Mary Anne Bruce respectively. Brett records an oral tradition that the house "originally formed part of a row of cottages attached to the mill, known as 'Primrose Cottage'," and that the extra storey, attics and staircase tower were added for the benefit of an incoming mill manager.

Subsequent decades saw various changes of occupier across the divided dwellings. By 1923, the house had been subdivided into seven separate dwellings, mostly valued between £1 and £2, with all properties leased from the Lambeg Bleaching, Dyeing and Finishing Company Ltd. The easternmost part of the building, which at that stage housed two dwellings, had by then been demolished. The portion that is now No. 29 Church Hill was at this stage two dwellings occupied by W. J. Crawford and Joseph McCabe, while what is now Lagan Lodge was divided into three dwellings occupied by Robert Costley, Arthur Lyness and Mary Robinson.

By 1933, when Marshall wrote his history of Lambeg, the house appears to have been restored to a single dwelling, described as "occupied up to recently by Mrs Robinson and her daughter." Brett also records a local tradition that the house was at some point vertically divided when one of two sisters who owned it married a gentleman uncongenial to the other, a story that may belong to the same period. According to Brett, the house was purchased by a Mrs Black in 1965 and by the current owners of No. 29 in 1979, who carried out extensive restoration. The house is presently divided into two dwellings.