Thornfield, 11 Magheralave Road, Lisburn, County Antrim, BT28 3BE

Thornfield is a one-and-a-half-storey three-bay symmetrical Victorian villa built around 1880. Located approximately one mile north of Lisburn town centre on Magheralave Road, opposite the entrance to Friends School, it represents a typical dwelling type of the period common to the local area. The exterior has retained much of its original style and character with little alteration to the principal façade, though extensive sympathetic additions to the rear have somewhat adversely affected the overall proportion and scale of the building. The secluded setting, screened from public view by large mature trees to the east, remains largely uninterrupted and contributes to the house's overall character.

The building is constructed with smooth rendered walling and a projected moulded plinth, with smooth banding. The roof is natural slate with a half-hipped form, clay ridge tiles and finials, and leaded hips. Timber fascia and barge boards with timber ties to gable ends are complemented by timber sheeted soffits with moulded eaves brackets. Cast-iron rainwater goods comprise semi-circular gutters with circular down pipes. The chimneys are smooth rendered with moulded cornices and clay pots.

The principal elevation faces south and is symmetrically arranged. It features a central projecting gabled-ended bay containing a six-panelled timber front door with bolection mouldings and brass ironmongery, with a fixed light over. The door opening is round-headed and arched with stucco moulded surrounds and key blocks extended into secondary arched mouldings creating spandrels with drop finials. Paired narrow windows occupy the first floor of this central bay. Ground floor cheeks of the central bay comprise diminished windows with rolled and coloured glass and margin panes. Flanking bays on either side each contain a single ground floor window with a wall-head half-hipped dormer over. Windows throughout are timber sliding sash with horns. Ground floor windows have segmental arched heads, while first floor windows have round-headed arches, all complemented with stucco moulded surrounds and central key-blocks.

The left elevation is asymmetrically arranged with a single-storey canted bay to the ground floor containing a single window, with two first floor windows over. The right elevation is symmetrically arranged with a central ground floor hipped-roof canted bay containing two first floor windows matching the left elevation, and a single diminished square-headed window to the right of the canted bay.

The rear elevation is principally abutted by two extended one-and-a-half-storey returns to the centre and right. Each return follows the general style and proportion of the main house with slight variations to the windows. The east cheek of the returns comprises two large square-headed ground floor windows with wall-head dormers over. These returns are further abutted by a recessed single-storey extension adjoining a further one-and-a-half-storey garage with accommodation over.

The house is set back from the road and accessed through a gated entrance with stucco moulded piers and railings. The surrounding area is suburban in character, comprising similarly sized two-storey dwellings, most erected at a later period.

The building first appears on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of around 1900. Historical records show it was the residence of Robert Rice, a churchwarden of Lisburn Cathedral in 1896 and an agent and director in the wine and spirit trade. The Belfast Telegraph reported the Rice family's residence there in March 1893 and again in April 1895 when Mrs Robert Rice gave birth to a son. The 1901 census records Robert Rice with his son Frederick, daughter, and a servant from County Longford. The house was listed as first class with eleven rooms. Robert Rice's daughter Kathleen died at Thornfield in 1921 at the age of twenty-eight. Jemima Grace Rice, Robert's widow, died in 1934, and two spinster ladies of the Agnew family died resident in the house in 1929 and 1937. Frederick W Rice, who worked as a railway clerk and was notably involved in hockey, died in 1954. By 1978 the house was the home of James Mathewson, an obstetrician.

This is a fair example of a common building type of its period but not considered among the best examples, and therefore not recommended for listing.