Plantation House, 74 Plantation Road, Lisburn, County Down, BT27 5PH

Plantation House is a symmetrical, detached, three-bay, two-storey rendered house built around 1800, with a two-storey rendered rear return, situated in the townland of Ballymullan Largymore on the northern side of Plantation Road, Lisburn. Although it retains significant local historical interest, the removal of its original porch, windows, and doorcase has compromised the front elevation to the point where the building does not meet the threshold for statutory listing. It is recorded here for its local interest alone.

The house sits on an elevated site accessed from the southwest via a long, tree-lined tarmac avenue that opens onto Plantation Road through a rendered, swept entrance screen with ruled and lined finish. The roof is pitched, covered in natural slate, with roll-moulded terracotta ridge tiles and concrete copings to each gable. Each gable is surmounted by a rendered, profiled chimneystack. Ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering runs to a moulded eaves cornice, with cast-iron downpipes. The external walls are finished in ruled and lined cement render, with a moulded render plinth course and rusticated moulded render quoins. Window openings are square-headed, with lugged moulded architrave surrounds, keystones, and concrete sills, fitted with replacement timber casement windows.

The symmetrical three-bay, two-storey front (north) elevation has a central door opening formed as a three-centred arch, now housing a replacement hardwood doorcase — the original projecting porch and doorcase having been removed around 1970. The east gabled elevation has moulded cement coping, a rendered profiled chimneystack, and square-headed window openings with replacement timber casement windows. The rear elevation is abutted centrally by a lower, two-bay, two-storey rendered return. This return has a flat roof with the remnants of a balustraded parapet wall and a cornice below, and is surmounted at its south end by a rendered profiled chimneystack. Attached to this return is a flat-roofed rear porch built around 1972, and a lean-to uPVC conservatory added to the west side around 2000.

To the front of the house stands a sunken shell house with a conical roof. To the west, a large landscaped garden extends along the lime tree-lined tarmac avenue leading to the rendered, swept, ruled and lined gate screen on Plantation Road.

The rear of the return abuts an L-plan range of two-storey outbuildings enclosing a concrete-paved rear yard to the southeast of the house. These outbuildings have pitched natural slate roofs, lime-rendered rubblestone and redbrick walling, some timber sash windows, and sheeted timber doors. Their interiors are largely intact, retaining original A-frame roof trusses, cobbled floors, and ramped timber stalls. The south range has a stone stair, sheeted timber doors with architrave surrounds, and a cast-iron fire surround to the upper floor.

Plantation House first appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833, depicted in what is essentially its current layout: an oblong house with a return and adjoining outbuilding to the rear, itself abutted on the east by an office range, which in turn is abutted to the north by another range, together forming a small courtyard. The house lay immediately to the east of a large Old Thread Manufactory constructed by John Barbour in 1784. By the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1858, the building is recorded by name as Plantation House for the first time, while Barbour's former manufactory was renamed The Plantation on the same map. Although the two sites were unconnected, Barbour's own three-storey house was also known as Plantation House, which has caused confusion in some later secondary sources.

Griffith's Valuation of 1861 records a Mr John Sloan as the occupant, holding the house from the Marquis of Hertford. The house and its associated offices were valued at £18 and by that date included a gate lodge erected since 1858. John Sloan was a sewed muslin manufacturer — muslin being a light cotton fabric used for clothing and curtains — and was appointed a town commissioner for Lisburn in 1861. He continued to live at Plantation House until his death in 1871, at which time he left the house and effects valued at £800 to his widow, Jane Sloan.

Jane Sloan lived at Plantation House until her death in 1903. The 1901 Census records her as an 89-year-old Presbyterian farmer residing at the property with her son James Edgar Sloan (aged 52) and her two daughters Mary Jane (aged 59) and Jessie (aged 45). James Edgar Sloan operated a bakery business trading as James E. Sloan & Co. Bakers in Sloan Street, Lisburn. The Census Building Return describes the house at that time as a second-class dwelling of eight rooms, with a large number of out-offices in the rear outbuildings. Jane Sloan died in 1903, leaving Plantation House to her children and bequeathing a substantial holding of 14 properties at Bridge End Hill and Gregg Street in Lisburn to her daughter Anna Black.

James Edgar Sloan and his unmarried sisters continued to reside at Plantation House until his death in 1910, after which Mary Jane and Jessie Sloan lived there alone. By the time of the 1911 Census the house was reclassified as a first-class dwelling. The fourth edition Ordnance Survey map shows that a single-storey oblong outbuilding to the northeast of the house had been constructed by 1919 to 1920. Jessie Sloan died in 1915, leaving Mary Jane as the sole occupant, and the family's association with the house is last documented in 1915.

The gate lodge to Plantation House is estimated to have been erected around 1860. Some secondary sources have incorrectly attributed this lodge to the western Plantation House associated with John Barbour, claiming Barbour sold it to John Sloan in 1863; however, documentary evidence confirms the lodge stood on Sloan's own land and was included in the valuation of his house. The gate lodge was demolished at some point after 1961, when it still appears on the Ordnance Survey map. The original projecting porch was removed around 1970, along with the original doorcase and a number of windows. A flat-roofed rear porch was added around 1972, and a lean-to uPVC conservatory was added to the west side around 2000.