1 MAIN ST.,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached symmetrical two-storey two bay stone house, built c.1825, with front entrance porch and two-storey rendered extension added to rear, c.1990. Rectangular on plan facing north and located on the south side of Main Street Eglinton.

Pitched natural slate roof with clay ridge tiles, two rendered chimneystacks with terracotta pots rising from either gable end and cast-iron rainwater goods. Random coursed basalt walling with lime pointing to front elevation, painted cement rendered walling to remaining elevations. Square-headed window openings with replacement multi-pane timber sliding sash windows without horns to front elevation, uPVC to side and rear elevations.

North front elevation is two windows wide abutted by a central gable-fronted entrance porch having natural slate roof with timber bargeboards and painted ruled-and-lined rendered walling. Painted rendered surrounds to windows with painted stone sills. Flat-panelled painted timber door to the east face of entrance porch opening into small gravel front area.

Gabled rendered east elevation with randomly-placed window openings having uPVC windows on painted masonry sills.

Rear (south) elevation abutted by two-storey gabled extension, a further single-storey rear projection and a lean-to timber conservatory.

Gabled rendered west elevation with randomly-placed window openings having uPVC windows on painted masonry sills. Diminutive lean-to boiler house abuts to south end of this elevation with natural slate roof.

Materials:
Roof Natural slate
RWG Cast-iron
Walling Basalt / ruled-and-lined cement render
Windows Replacement timber sliding sash / uPVC

Setting
Located on the south side of Main Street in the centre of Eglinton village enclosed by a low painted rendered wall with replacement iron railing and matching pedestrian gate. Timber vehicular entrance gates on rendered piers to the east end of the site with cobblelock driveway and single-storey rendered outbuildings enclosing the rear of the site with pitched natural slate roofs.

Historical information

The construction of this house was part of the redevelopment of what was then called the village of Muff by the Grocers’ Company of London in the 1820s and 1830s. The house was originally built as the home of John Logue, the miller of the nearby Templemoyle mill. In 1827 it was noted that the house of the ‘mulcturer of Templemoyle Mill’ had been completed.

In July 1835 the agent for the Grocers’ Company informed his employer that the miller’s house would be let as a police barracks at £10 per annum, explaining that ‘this is the only fit building and has been applied for by the authorities, the police being in lodgings’. The contemporary First Valuation fieldbook named the house as ‘Loagh [i.e. Logue] House’, with an amendment to indicate that it had become a police barracks. The dimensions of the house were given as 30 feet long, 27 feet broad and 16 feet high. The valuation placed on the house and an outbuilding was £7 7s. 3d.

The building is represented as a small roughly square structure on the 1830 Ordnance Survey map. The 1853 Ordnance Survey map shows a rear return to the structure which it names as ‘Police Barrack’. In Griffith’s Valuation (1858) the buildings on the site are given the valuation of £7 10s. This valuation remained the same through to 1928 when it was increased to £11 10s, though without any explanation. By this time it was a Royal Ulster Constabulary Police Station. The House and Building return of the 1911 census had shown that the house contained 7-9 rooms and had 4 windows in front.

In the early 1930s a new police station was built in Eglinton and the house reverted to being a private dwelling. It was in the occupation of a Stanley Toms in 1935, but by 1946 it had come into the possession of Harold Turner who purchased the house outright in 1948. In the same year the valuer noted that electricity had been installed since the 1st Revaluation. A plan of the house provided the same dimensions as those recorded in the mid 1830s – 30 feet by 27 feet. There was also a two-storey rear extension measuring 16 feet by 8 feet.

In 1980 the house was owned by the Turner family and named ‘Woodbury’. In 1982 various repairs were carried out to the guttering, chimney flues and windows. In 1991, the new owner installed new Georgian-paned sliding sash windows and built an extension to the rear.

References:

Primary sources:
Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
First Valuation fieldbook, c. 1835 – VAL/1/B/550A
Valuation Revision Books, 1860-1929 – VAL/12/B/32/6A-F
First Northern Ireland General Revaluation Books, 1935 – VAL/3/B/6/7
First Northern Ireland General Revaluation Books: Annual Revision Lists, 1936-57 – VAL/3/C/6/8
Valuers and Revaluation Binders, Faughan Ward, Muff townland, 1956-75 – VAL/4/C/6/3/13/12
Ordnance Survey 6-inch map, 1830 – OS/6/5/15/1
Ordnance Survey 6-inch map, 1853 – OS/6/5/15/2
Ordnance Survey 6-inch map, 1905 – OS/6/5/15/3
Northern Ireland Environment Agency
First Survey record – HB/01/03/019
HB Records – HB/01/03/019

Secondary sources:
Published sources
James Stevens Curl, The Londonderry Plantation, 1609-1914 (Chichester, 1986)
Alan Rogers, The Twice-Born Village: Muff Eglinton (Co. Londonderry) (New University of Ulster, 1984)
Angélique Day & Patrick McWilliams (eds), Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, vol. 36 (Belfast, 1996)
Alistair J. Rowan, The Buildings of Ireland: North West Ulster (Harmondsworth, 1979)
Brian Mitchell, Historic Eglinton (1994)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

T. Historic Importance
X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
R. Age
S. Authenticity

Evaluation

Detached symmetrical two-storey stone house, built c.1825, with front entrance porch and two-storey rendered extension added to rear, c.1990. Construction was part of the redevelopment of what was then called the village of Muff by the Grocers’ Company of London in the 1820s and 1830s. Originally constructed as the miller's house, consequently let as a police barracks by the landlords, before reverting to a private dwelling in the early 1930s. Whilst the 1990 renovations replaced a substantial proportion of original fabric to the interior and uPVC replacement windows and a sunroom to the rear detract, the fine stone front façade retains its nineteenth-century character and appearance. Internally, sufficient of interest survives to merit protection. The house, one of a group of contemporary historic buildings, stands in a good setting with gate, wall, piers and railings on a prominent site at the heart of Eglinton village.