Larchfield House, 375 Upper Ballynahinch Rd, Lisburn, County Down, BT27 6XJ

Larchfield House

Larchfield House is a detached, rendered country house of around 1850, set within its own estate on the north side of Bailliesmill Road and to the southeast of Ballynahinch Road, near Lisburn, County Down. The building may possibly have been designed by Charles Lanyon, though no documentary evidence firmly confirms this attribution. It is a well-proportioned house of considerable architectural and historical interest, occupying a site with origins in the mid-18th century, and retaining an impressive array of original fabric and detailing throughout.

Origins and Development

The Larchfield estate was established sometime between around 1744 and the early 1750s by Daniel Mussenden I (c.1685–c.1763), son of Francis Mussenden, Registrar of the Diocese of Down. Daniel was a Belfast merchant engaged in importing and exporting goods to the Americas and Northern Europe, with additional business interests including shares in a local wine company, a salt company, a partnership with John Bradshaw connected with the linen industry, and an involvement in the Tyrone Colliery Company. He also acted in a banking capacity and was a partner in Belfast's first bank, Mussenden, Adair and Bateson, established in 1753. By the mid-1740s he had accumulated sufficient wealth to acquire land at Aghnaleck, between Lisburn and Ballynahinch, where he built a new house he named Larchfield. The precise date of construction is uncertain, but the house is marked on Kennedy's County Down map of 1755, indicating it was standing by that date, though it may not have been fully fitted out until a year or so later. Internal detailing also suggests a 1740s date.

The property passed to Daniel's son, William Mussenden I (1712–1780), who appears to have been an unpopular landlord: in January 1772 a 300-strong contingent of the Hearts of Steel surrounded the house and threatened to burn it down and lay the estate waste. Both house and grounds survived unscathed. The estate then came into the possession of Daniel Mussenden II in 1794, and his son William Mussenden II (1782–1860) inherited in 1829.

The six-inch Ordnance Survey map of 1834 indicates that the main block was at that time roughly half its present size, with the principal elevation facing west and smaller rear returns. The townland valuation of around 1835 records the main block as measuring 63½ feet by 24½ feet by 27 feet, with a 9-foot-high basement, along with four rear sections of varying dimensions. Also recorded at this time is a long block measuring 90 feet by 23 feet by 17½ feet, described as containing servants' rooms in the upper storey with a wash house and other service functions below; this appears to have been the northern return in its original two-storey form and, since it does not appear on the 1834 map, was probably built shortly after that date.

Sometime between this valuation and 1859, the building took on much of its present form. A new block was added to the west, the south side was extended and remodelled to create a new principal front complete with portico, and new sections were added to the east of the long northern service wing. The 1862 valuation records the enlarged main block in two sections and documents the various projections, returns, and the large service wing. The architect responsible for these changes is not firmly established. Hugh Dixon suggested Charles Lanyon, and this attribution has not been definitively ruled out; the OS maps and valuations indicate the changes were made before 1859 — possibly as early as the later 1830s — a timeframe that would be consistent with Lanyon's earlier style.

Between 1862 and 1866, Ogilvie Blair Graham (1820–1897), managing partner in the York Street Flax Spinning Company in Belfast, became the new occupant. Over the following decade he made numerous changes to the estate. In 1878 the Annual Revisions record that the gate lodges were replaced with the current Hillsborough Lodge and Lisburn Lodge, increasing the rateable value of the property to £112. In 1883 Graham erected a new office, built a new south-facing entrance, and raised part of the house by a storey — almost certainly a reference to the northern service wing and the section attached to the south of it, both of which display late Victorian detailing.

Ogilvie Graham died in 1898 and left the house to his widow, Louisa Sara Graham. The 1901 Census records that Louisa, then 70 years old and born in America, was living at Larchfield House with two children and four grandchildren, attended by at least twelve servants. She owned a farmstead with over thirty outbuildings, most of which were located a short distance to the east of the house and shown on the third-edition Ordnance Survey map of 1900–01 under the name Home Farm; this farmstead had expanded considerably between around 1830 and around 1920. On Louisa's death in 1907, the house passed to her son, also named Ogilvie Blair Graham, who remained the recorded occupant until the end of the Annual Revisions in 1929. The current owner's family acquired the property sometime before 1968.

In the mid-20th century, some of the buildings to the northeast were demolished and a large garage structure was added, replacing a similar-sized structure shown on the 1902 map. The house was listed in 1984, and in that same year the chimney was dismantled and restored, and the slated roof was repaired. In 2006, some of the buildings around the southern yard were converted to function rooms, and a brick lean-to on the eastern wing was added at this time.

Architectural Description

The house as it stands today is a three-bay, two-storey building over a concealed basement, with rendered walls. The principal elevation faces southwest, and a four-bay garden elevation faces west, incorporating the earlier house of around 1755, which is visible to the rear. An L-plan three-storey wing extending to the northeast was added around 1870.

The roofs are hipped, covered in natural slate with rolled lead ridges, sitting behind a corniced blocking parapet wall. Several tall chimneystacks of sandstone ashlar carry octagonal clay pots. The external walling is finished in ruled and lined lime render, with a projecting sandstone plinth course and rusticated sandstone quoins. Window openings are square-headed throughout, with sandstone sills and 6-over-6 timber sash windows.

The symmetrical principal front elevation has a central shallow breakfront abutted by a tetrastyle Ionic portico with a balustraded parapet, a paved platform, and three nosed steps. The door opening has a Portland limestone architrave surround and a timber door with eight raised and fielded panels. To either side of the portico are tripartite Wyatt-style timber sash windows set within shallow arched recesses with a diminutive cornice at impost level. The west side elevation is four windows wide, with smaller windows to the first floor.

The rear elevation is multi-bay and two storeys over an exposed basement. The two-bay central block dating from around 1755 forms a shallow breakfront. The east section is recessed and adjoins the three-storey L-plan wing, which also incorporates a further single-storey flat-roofed section over the basement, accessed by a flight of stone steps to the rear enclosed garden. The east side elevation is single-bay and two storeys, with a single window to the first floor, abutted by a modern side entrance porch.

The northeast L-plan wing has a hipped natural slate roof, with a single-bay south elevation projecting beyond the east side elevation of the main house. The wing has cast-iron rainwater goods, rendered chimneystacks, and ruled and lined cement-rendered walling. Its window openings are square-headed with stop-chamfered surrounds, stone sills, and horizontally-glazed timber sash windows.

Setting and Group Value

The house stands within its own estate, accessed via two winding tarmac avenues. The southern avenue opens onto Bailliesmill Road opposite the south gate lodge, through a pair of rebuilt stone-faced concrete block splayed walls. The northwest avenue opens onto Ballynahinch Road opposite the north gate lodge, through a pair of decorative cast-iron gates supported on rusticated sandstone piers with fluted cornices and capstones bearing stone ball finials. According to the current owner, both gate screens were reconstructed in 2010 and widened to improve visibility; although reconstructed, they significantly augment the character of the approach.

To the rear, to the north of the house, lie a walled garden, vegetable plots, a formal pleached hedge garden, and a lake. An extensive stableyard is located to the east. The house has group value with the stableyard outbuildings and both gate lodges, and when seen from the southwest presents a formal composition well suited to its demesne setting, enhanced by the large stableyard, the walled garden, and the rubblestone boundary walls throughout the estate.