Chrome Hill, 8 Ballyskeagh Road, Lambeg, Lisburn, Co. Antrim, BT27 5SY

Chrome Hill is a detached, multi-bay, two-storey rendered house built around 1640, with a two-storey-and-attic west wing added around 1760 and a bow added around 1830. Originally known as Lambeg House, and possibly built by the linen merchant Abraham Wolfenden in the 17th century, the house was renamed Chrome Hill by Richard Niven after 1830. It is a building of national architectural and historical interest, comprising three distinct parts in a complicated layout, with a substantially intact interior that includes some rare joinery and unusual internal features. Its external and internal character and detailing survive largely complete. Additional interest attaches to the survival of its gate screen and the extensive mature grounds running down to the River Lagan.

Form and Setting

The house is T-shaped on plan, facing south, with a one-and-a-half-storey wing to the east. It sits on an elevated, landscaped site on the south side of Ballyskeagh Road, overlooking the River Lagan to the south. The roofs are pitched natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles. The chimneystacks are rough-cast rendered with octagonal clay pots. Cast-iron guttering sits on ogee-moulded masonry eaves, with cast-iron downpipes. The external walls are painted rough-cast render with a projecting rendered plinth course.

Windows throughout are square-headed with bull-nosed reveals, painted masonry sills, and original six-over-six timber sash windows with part-exposed sash boxes; some retain cylinder glass.

Principal Elevations

The principal south elevation is five windows wide. The south gable of the west wing projects at the left, with a semi-circular attic window and two windows to its east cheek. An off-centre square-headed door opening has a lugged and kneed sandstone architrave surround, a pulvinated frieze, and a full pediment above bearing a red sandstone family crest inserted by the Niven family around 1840. The flush panelled timber door has brass furniture and opens onto a stone-flagged footpath leading to a front gravel area.

The west elevation of the west wing is symmetrical, three bays wide, two storeys with attic, and has a central full-height elliptical bow. A large central dormer has a timber door with sidelights and a lead-lined segmental pediment. The bow has a painted stone coping to its parapet wall and multi-pane timber casement windows, with multi-pane French doors at ground level.

The north gable of the west wing projects beyond the north rear elevation and has two window openings to the ground floor and a single opening to the first floor and attic. The two-storey north rear elevation includes a flat-roofed half-landing block set into the re-entrant angle. A Venetian window in the east bay breaks through the eaves course, with the moulded eaves continuing as an arch with lead lining. The half-landing block has a fixed-pane Art Nouveau leaded window and a further leaded single-pane timber sash window to the east. A further fixed-pane Art Nouveau leaded window sits at ground level in the centre bay. A square-headed door opening here has a replacement timber glazed door and a cornice supported on console brackets.

The east gable is abutted by the one-and-a-half-storey east wing, which has two lucarne window openings to the front south elevation, two window openings over a single door opening to the east gable, and various single-pane timber sash windows to the rear. A single-storey car port abuts the rear elevation of the east wing.

Setting

The house sits on an elevated site overlooking the River Lagan to the south. The landscaped grounds contain many mature trees and garden features including a circular-plan stone and brick dovecote, cobbled footpaths, and two winding gravel avenues — one to the north and one to the northeast — each opening onto the road through pairs of entrance gates on rendered piers with quadrant walls.

Historical Development

According to secondary sources, the house originated as a small farm dwelling known as Lambeg House, from which the present building has developed. A former owner, McKinstry, as cited by Brett, described the original building as a two-unit, two-storeyed or lofted house of hearth-lobby formation, with the stairs at the rear of the chimneystack between it and the back wall. The Wolfenden family used the property for many years as a mill house associated with their manufacture of linen, paper, calico and muslin; their blanket factory stood on the other side of the river.

Sometime during the 1760s, McKinstry records, the original house was heightened, remodelled and extended by the addition of a three-storey wing on the west side, three rooms long. The difference in floor levels between the old and new blocks, and the way they are set at right angles to one another, suggests this wing may already have existed as a cloth store, positioned close to the house for security. At this time the front door was moved westward by three bays, a fine staircase was built to a spacious landing, and a large sitting room was made from the original loft above the hearth room. Rankin, citing the same source, suggests these changes reflected the more sophisticated, formal, and spacious lifestyle of the 18th-century factory owner, and that much of this mid-18th-century detail still survives intact. It is surmised that it was probably the second Richard Wolfenden who undertook this ambitious rebuilding when, at the age of twenty, he succeeded his father in 1743, possibly after his marriage to Jane Usher, at which point the house was renamed Harmony Hill.

Around 1830 the house was purchased by Richard Nevin of Glasgow. Nevin had established extensive printworks at Lambeg and had successfully invented a method of fixing colours known as Bi-Chrome, a term he applied when renaming the house Chrome Hill. Further alterations were carried out during the 1830s: in addition to inserting his own crest in the pediment over the front door, Nevin added the elliptical bow to the west elevation and remodelled the interiors.

Following Nevin's death in 1866, his widow remained at Chrome Hill until 1899, when the house was purchased by John M. Milligan, a successful coal merchant and speculator. During this period, around the turn of the century, the stone quoins — visible in an old photograph — were cut back and cemented over. Various occupiers lived in the house in the early 20th century, during which time an Art Nouveau stained glass window was inserted in the enlarged entrance hall.

The house is identified in the Townland Valuations of 1828–40, with Mr Nevin recorded as occupier and the buildings valued at £22 19s. The Valuations also identify a Calico Printing Establishment located nearby, also in the ownership of the Nevin family. By the time of Griffith's Valuation, Richard Nevin remained the occupant and the property was valued at £32, an increase likely reflecting enlargement or remodelling. The value remained unchanged throughout the Annual Revisions of 1862 to 1923, though John M. Milligan was recorded as occupant in 1903, followed by the McMurry family in 1921. The Ordnance Survey map of 1901 is the first to caption the building as Chrome Hill. In 1924, following various short-term occupants, Mrs Downer purchased the house, after which there have been only two further owners.