Stable Block

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

An gable-ended L-shaped 18th-century outbuilding with slated roof lying immediately south of the main house. The range is a two phase structure, with the northern block being the earlier. However, the time span between the two blocks is probably not very great. The entire range is built of a similar coursed random rubble, which originally was rendered and whitened; only render patches now survive.

The North Range: Long range with slated roof and plain gable verges at each end. The north-west gable contains a double opening wooden framed casement window, centrally placed at first floor level and providing light for the two rooms of the groom's lodgings. This end gable wall is otherwise devoid of features. The north elevation of this range has a regular disposition of three windows along much of its length, with a smaller fourth window at the south-east end, flanked by a door opening. The window opening at the north-west end, which ghost impressions show originally contained a door, has a fixed leaded window with diamond cames. Four of the quarries in the centre of this window are fixed on a pivot and can be opened to allow fresh into the room. The south elevation of this range contains at the north-west end another window with a fixed frame of leaded cames, again with four of the cames attached to a pivot. The south-east end of this elevation has a modern double doorway, created to permit machinery into the building.

The South Range: Long range that has distinctive features different from the north range. Unlike the plain verges the north range gables, the south of this range has a parapeted gable. There is no gable at the north end as the roof of this range is embedded into the roof of the north range. The west facing elevation of this range has a fairly regular disposition of two doors and three windows with a double doored opening at the south-west end. The three window openings have wood frames, each with wooden shutter. The north door has a six-panelled frame, while the other door has a batten planked frame. The double batten doors on the south-west side are ledged and braced and there is a relieving arch visible in the wall above. Above the windows and doors there are a series short rectangular horizontal ventilation opening, four in number, a feature that is absent from the north range. At the south end of the range there is a single-storey disused lean-to building with roof of corrugated iron.

Historical information

Specific
The range is depicted on the 1832 and subsequent ediiton of the Ordnance Survey maps. It is 18th century in date, the northern range being probably contemporary with the main house, though elements of its roof structure could be as early as the 1680s. It is possible there has been some re-use of old timbers, though some of the roofing techniques are of an early form, notably the butting of rafters into the purlins. A few archaeologiacl trenches were dug near the building in 2005 by Dr. Breen (University of Coleraine), but these failed to add to ouir knoweldeg of the complex.

General
Prehen means ‘place of the crows’ and during the 17th century the banks of the River Foyle in this vicinity were still thickly wooded. The townland of Prehen, part of civil parish of Clondermot, and barony of Tirkeeran, was acquired as part of Goldsmith’s Proportion in 1614. Thomas Raven’s map of the Proportion, made in 1619, shows the townland clearly with a house located close to the water, south-west of the present mansion. This building, evidently a single storey gable-ended dwelling, occupied by one William Taylor, was undoubtably destroyed in the 1640 Rebellion. The property was acquired in 1664 by Alderman Alexander Tomkins and his wife Margaret, daughter of Alderman Thomas Moncreiffe. Tomkins was Mayor of the city at the time of the siege of Londonderry in 1689 and there is a memorial dedicated to ‘Tomkins of Prehen’ in Derry Cathedral erected in 1678. His house at Prehen, which was probably built in the 1660s, must have stood on the site of the present building. However, it may not have been a large affair, for although Tomkins is described as ‘of Prehen’, his main house was probably in the city itself. Whatever house stood here, it must have been badly damaged in 1690 when the more irregular troops of James II gutted houses in the vicinity of the city. Alderman Tomkins’s son George served as MP for the city from 1715-39 and apparently had a residence in Mobuy, Co. Londonderry.
On stylistic and architectural grounds we can deduce that the present house was built in the 1740s. It is therefore most likely to have been built by Colonel Andrew Knox, who in 1738 married Honaria, daughter and heiress of Andrew Tomkins of Prehen. Andrew Knox was descended from a Scot, the Rev, Andrew Knox, who was consecrated Bishop of Raphoe in 1610, and was granted the monastic lands of Rathmullan in 1614. On the death of his father George in 1741, Col. Knox inherited the family houses at both Rathmullan and Munnymore, Co. Donegal. It is likely that the income from this inheritance provided the financial stimulus to built the present house at Prehen.
While there is no documentary proof to support it, on stylistic grounds it seems very likely that he engaged the Londonderry architect Michael Priestly. There are similarities with Lifford Court House (1745), notably in the use of the parapet and Gibbs door surround and deep pediment. Another Priestly house, Porthall in Donegal, built for John Vaughan of Buncrana, also shares a number of features with Prehen.
The Lifford Court house was to witness the trial of ‘half hung’ John MacNaghten of Benvarden in December 1761. He was found guilty of murdering Mary Ann, the only daughter of Col. Andrew Knox and later executed. The event, which began with his perusal of the hand of Mary Ann Knox in 1759, followed by her attempted kidnapping and murder in a coach near Strabane, was a major and tragic event in the history of Prehen during the time of Col. Andrew Knox.
Col. Knox was to serve as MP for Donegal for 27 years. He was a religious man and made friends with the dissenter John Wesley (1703-91), who stayed at Prehen in the 1760s. In 1760 George Knox, son and heir of Col. Andrew Knox, and brother of the murdered Mary Ann, married Jane, daughter of Thomas Mahon of Strokestown House, Co. Roscommon. On the death of his father he succeeded to the Rathmullan and Moneymore properties in 1774 and later on the death of his mother in the 1790s he also inherited Prehen. He lived until 1840 and was responsible for creating the parkland around the house in the 1790s (now much reduced) and for building a gate lodge c.1820. The adjacent road alongside the Foyle here was laid down in 1795. The house and its parkland is depicted in a Brocas print c.1800 from the city of Londonderry.
Prehen was inherited by George Knox’s eldest son Andrew, who was Lieutenant in the Donegal Militia and for many years MP for County Donegal. He married Mary, daughter of Dominick McCausland of Drenagh and was in turn succeeded prematurely in 1848 at Prehen by his son George, then a minor (1832-1910). George had a successful military career, being Lieutenant-Colonel in the Derry Artillery and High Sheriff of County Donegal in 1862. He liked to travel around the world, collecting curios abroad, including a wife he found in Switzerland, Rose Virginie Grimm of Neuchatel. He died in November 1910, leaving no sons, and thus the male line of Knoxes at Prehen came to an end.
George Know had two daughters, one of whom married Ludwig Von Scheffler, Doctor of Philosophy at Weimar near Hamburg. They in turn had a son George, born 1884, who became a Page to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar and later Governor of the Royal pages at the Emperor’s Court in Berlin, where he was honoured with the title ‘Baron’. He inherited Prehen from his grandfather aged only 26, but a condition of the inheritance was that he add the name Know to his own for the term of his natural life, and that he become a British Citizen within two years of the testator’s death. The inheritance was contested in court, which Baron Scheffler won, and he subsequently settled in Prehen. Unfortunately, the Great War broke out in 1914 and Baron George Otto Louis Von Scheffler-Knox found himself declared an enemy alien and the house and lands of Prehen were requisitioned and placed on the open market under the Enemy Property Act (conveyance signed by Stephen Tallents, Custodian under the Enemy property Act). The Baron himself died in 1966.
During the early 20th century the house was subdivided into flats and the parkland suffered with trees being felled. Eventually, the house was acquired by in 1971 by Julia Peck, granddaughter of Winifred Knox, authoress of 25 historical novels and histories. The house, then in a poor state of repair, was restored by her and her parents Julian and Carola Peck, who moved here from Rathbeale hall, near Swords in 1974. Mr Peck died in 2001.

References:
Mss Map dated 1828 or 1829 by JL. Townlands of Currody, Bolies, Brickilns, Prehen.
Ordnance Survey Map Sheet 20 (1832)
Ordnance Survey Map Sheet 20 (1856)
PRONI D/2807
The Irish Society (1822) A Concise View of the Irish Society, p93.
PRONI MIC/26 Templemore Church of Ireland Register
The Registers of Derry Cathedral, Parish of Templemore, 1642-1703 (Parish Register Society of Dublin, 1910), p367.
Burke’s Landed Gentry (1846), p1404.
Pue’s Occurrences, 11th September 1739.
View of Foyle toward Prehen by Henry Brocas
Ordnance Survey Memoirs (1835)
Penelope FitzGerald (1977) The Knox Brothers. Macmillan, London
Bence-Jones, M (1978) Irish Country Houses, p235. Burkes, London
Rowan, Alistair 91979). North West Ulster, p405-6. Penguin, Harmondsworth
Dean, J. A. K (1994) The Gate Lodges of Ulster, p119. UAHS, Belfast
Mss Notes compiled by Colin Peck.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

Good quality 18th century stable building range. Two phase structure. The north range is probably of c.1740 date, but the roof timbers may be older, some of these being square cut with rafters butted into the prulins (usually considered a 17th century feature in roof construction). While the roof gives this building undoubted local interest, it does also have national status.

General comments

This 18th century yard with L-shaped plan, was built in two phases. The earlier block, lying to the north and closet to the house, is distinguished by it very fine collar beam timber roof, compose of square cut fir/pine timbers. At the west end the rafters are butted into the purlins, rather than being placed over them (as is the norm) indicating that this is an early roof. It is possible that many of the timbers used in the roof are reused from an earlier 17th century structure.