Knowe Head, 45 Knowehead Road, Broughshane, Co Antrim, BT43 7LF

Knowe Head, 45 Knowehead Road, Broughshane

Knowe Head is a picturesque two-storey gentleman farmer's residence of 1867, of relatively compact proportions and asymmetric appearance. It sits on an elevated site to the north of Broughshane, approached by a curving tree-lined drive off Knowehead Road. The overall composition is unusual and attractive, the principal interest lying in the contrast between the double-gabled front elevation with its rustic porch and the more formally symmetrical garden front with its canted bays, as well as in the mixture of wall finishes across the building. The house is largely intact both inside and out, retaining finely worked detailing throughout. A cobbled yard and a collection of rubble-built outbuildings to the rear are also well preserved, most of them predating the house itself and quite probably of 18th century construction in part. The walled garden survives intact and is something of a rare survivor for a property of this size.

The listing covers the house, outbuildings, north boundary wall, and walled garden.

ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER

The house is square in plan, facing west, with a projecting entrance porch to the front, projecting canted bays to the south elevation, and a two-storey return to the north. The roof is steeply pitched with overhanging gable-ended dormers and decorative bargeboards, finished in natural slate with plain blue-black clay ridge tiles. Chimneys are yellow brick with tall yellow clay octagonal pots. The eaves have a painted timber fascia and soffit with decorative bargeboards, and a cast-metal ogee-profile gutter with metal downpipes. Rainwater goods appear to be largely PVC.

All walls are finished in dry-dash render with stucco quoins at the corners. The plinth is rock-faced rubble stone with a stone course capping. Window openings have stone sills and are square-headed to the ground floor and arch-headed to the first floor. Windows are generally painted timber sliding sash, with 2-over-2 pane arrangements to the main house and 6-over-6 to the return.

FRONT ELEVATION (WEST)

The west front is asymmetrical, with two gables and an entrance porch positioned off-centre at the apex between them. The larger gable is to the right, with one window centrally placed at each floor level. The smaller gable to the left has a similar arrangement, though the windows on this side are not vertically aligned. The projecting porch has a hipped natural slate roof and is supported on four decorative timber posts with stone base pads and struts and braces at the eaves; it rests on a single large stone step. The main doorway is square-headed and slightly recessed, with a plain stucco surround. The door itself is painted timber and panelled, with two glazed arch-headed panels in the upper section, and a metal and glass pendant porch light above. The timberwork of the porch is particularly memorable. A yellow-brick chimney sits off-centre on the roof, carrying one tall yellow clay octagonal pot and one small red clay pot.

REAR ELEVATION (EAST)

The rear elevation has a gable to the left with one square-headed window at first floor level. To the right there is a square-headed window at each level, with a 6-over-6 sliding sash at ground level, a small additional window at the same level (partially obscured at the time of survey), and an oil tank on a concrete base. A plain rendered chimney with a slim concrete cap (a replacement) sits on the roof. The possibility that the somewhat plainer rear return may incorporate part of an earlier structure has been noted.

SOUTH ELEVATION (GARDEN FRONT)

The south elevation is symmetrical, with two single-storey canted bays at ground level flanking a single centrally placed window. Above, a gable with a single window sits over each bay. The bays are tripartite with moulded sandstone surrounds featuring roll-moulded mullions and a large chamfered cornice, along with bevelled sandstone window sills and subtle Gothic motifs — the finely worked detailing being of particular note. There are oversized decorative timber brackets at the eaves. The bays have flat roofs.

NORTH ELEVATION

The north elevation is relatively plain, with three gables with clipped verges. The right-hand gable has exposed rubble-stone walls and a square-headed window opening at first floor level. The left-hand gable is rendered with two square-headed casement windows at first floor level, possibly replacements, and a door opening at ground level with a glazed overlight. Attached to the central gable is a large rectangular two-storey return with rendered walls, clipped verges, and an asbestos slate roof. The east and west faces of the return each have one square-headed window opening at each level with 6-over-6 sliding sash windows; the gable is plain with a yellow-brick chimney with slim concrete capping and two tall yellow clay octagonal pots. Attached to this gable are the remains of a single-storey extension, possibly incorporating original walls of an earlier house; at the time of the listing survey this extension was in the process of being demolished, and it was largely removed in 2019 as part of a major refurbishment. Hand-made brick found within the fabric suggests a portion of the pre-1867 structure may have been retained within the northern return.

SETTING

The house benefits from a lofty, mature setting with a sweeping lawn and curving tree-lined approach. To the rear, an enclosed cobbled yard contains a relatively large collection of two-storey and single-storey outbuildings, mainly rubble-built, many of which predate the house. The walled garden is intact. The plan of the house and outbuildings appears broadly similar to that recorded on the 1903 Ordnance Survey map, though there have been various alterations to the outbuildings in recent decades. The mills formerly situated to the east, closer to the Artoges River, were cleared away after 1967 and their site is now occupied by two dwelling houses.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

A dwelling existed on or close to this site from at least 1774, when Samuel Davison of Nowhead is mentioned in a Belfast News-Letter notice of August that year. The Davison family had been long established in Knockboy townland, with three individuals of that name recorded as householders in the 1666 hearth money rolls. Two of those dwellings were single-hearth structures; the third, the residence of John Davison senior, had two hearths and was likely the principal family seat. The Davisons held the lease of Knowe Head from the O'Neill-Mountcashel estate until sometime between 1808 and 1834, when it was acquired by James Logan. The 1834 valuation records Logan as holding a dwelling, offices, beetling mill, corn mill, and kiln, though unusually the valuers supply no dimensions for any of these. The near-contemporary Ordnance Survey map shows a building of different plan and orientation roughly on the site of today's house, with a larger U-shaped complex immediately to the west partly matching the current outbuildings, and smaller structures to the north and east, some coinciding with buildings still standing.

The 1835 Ordnance Survey memoirs record that the beetling mill was powered by a breast water wheel 18 feet by 4 feet 4 inches, and the corn mill by a smaller wheel of 13 feet by 2 feet 8 inches. In summer 1850 the lease was advertised for sale in two lots: lot one comprised the mansion house, office houses, walled garden, six beetling engines, wash-mills and linen-finishing equipment, an excellent corn mill, two kilns, and five workmen's cottages; lot two consisted of over 37 acres of farmland. Both lots appear to have been purchased by David Wilson, who offered the property for sale again in November 1858, by which time the house was described as in good order and fit for a respectable family, commanding a beautiful prospect, with the garden well stocked with fruit trees and the corn mill nearly new, having been rebuilt within the previous two years.

The second valuation of 1859 records the house as comprising a main thatched section measuring 57 feet by 19 feet 6 inches by 9 feet 6 inches, with slated portions of 19 feet 6 inches by 23 feet by 14 feet, 22 feet by 8 feet by 6 feet 6 inches, and 37 feet by 11 feet 6 inches by 6 feet 6 inches. A newspaper account of September 1862 describes its accommodation as a parlour, drawing room, five bedrooms, kitchen, pantry, scullery, and servants' apartments. The outbuildings recorded by the valuers at the same date comprised eleven separate structures, their dimensions ranging from 20 feet by 13 feet by 8 feet up to 70 feet by 20 feet by 13 feet 6 inches.

The house, mills, and part of the farmland were sold around 1858 to 1859 to Edward Barr Currell, who did not remain long; the property was put up for sale again in late 1862 and sublet to Samuel McCahey and John Craig by 1865. In 1866 the lease was sold to William Orr Wilson, a draper from Ballymena, and in 1867 to 1868 he constructed the present dwelling. At least part of the older house appears to have been retained, as the valuers do not record it as demolished until 1883. The quality of the new building's composition suggests an architect was involved in its design rather than simply a skilled builder, though its authorship remains unknown.

Around 1896 the mills at Knowe Head came under the management of the Raceview Woollen Mill, then belonging to a Wilson relation, though the rest of the property remained with William Orr Wilson and his family. It was at Knowe Head that William and Jemima Wilson's youngest son, Guy Livingstone Wilson (1885–1962), lived until early adulthood. He became an internationally renowned daffodil breeder, and one of the white varieties he raised was named after the property. William Orr Wilson died in 1906 and Jemima in 1910, the latter in tragic circumstances, drowning after accidentally falling into the millrace.

Knowe Head subsequently passed to their eldest son, Major-General James Barnett Wilson (1862–1936), and his wife Kathleen Dorothea (1872–1946), and then to their elder son, Colonel John Barnett Wilson (1899–1964), the last of the family to live there. Around 1956 the property was acquired by Major Robert Bruce Morton (1922–c.1998), who appears to have retained it into the 1990s. By 2003 a Mr Peter Carrington was apparently living there. The present owner purchased the property in 2019.