30 Ardmore Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached two-bay single-storey with attic stone gate lodge with carriage arch, built c.1870, with stone entrance screen and pillars. Located on the north side of Ardmore Road forming the entrance to Beech Hill Country House Hotel (HB01/06/008).

Pitched natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles, lead valleys and timber lined overhanging eaves. Rubblestone chimneystack with terracotta pots and timber fascia with cast-iron gutter and downpipe over the front entrance only. Two gabled wall-head dormers rise into the front pitch with replacement timber bargeboards. Hipped natural slate roof with lead ridges to the carriage arch with a single blind dormer. Coursed rubblestone walling throughout. Square-headed window openings with replacement flush timber casement windows having latticed leaded glazing and timber sills.

Principal south elevation is two bays wide with a pointed-arched door opening to the east end; the latter is sheltered by extended roof overhang, supported on fluted cast iron columns. Projecting painted masonry platband over the dormer windows and continuous painted masonry platband forming a hood moulding over the ground floor windows. First floor dormers are square headed paired windows with side hung opening lights above a pair of ground floor windows 4 panels wide again with side hung openings. Replacement hardwood sheeted and glazed door to the principal entrance with a pair of fluted slender cast-iron columns supporting the eaves.

West side elevation abutted by carriage arch screen, rising above the lodge with a corbelled eaves course and a square carved limestone plaque stating; “GENEROSITATE / SUB TEGMINE FAGI”. Voussoired round-headed carriage arch with replacement hardwood gates on iron hinges.

Rear (North) elevation abutted by a single-storey rendered extension. A single multi-pane iron window is tucked below eaves level to the main building, near to the abutment with later gabled extension. A further derelict castellated structure to the rear with central Tudor-arched opening flanked by cross-shaped apertures and surmounted by three square-headed openings. A greenhouse enclosed by rendered brick walling on two sides sits between the extension and the castellated structure.

East side elevation is blind with a former square-headed window opening to the attic level, now closed up.

Materials:
Roof Natural slate
RWG Cast-iron
Walling Rubblestone
Windows Replacement leaded latticed casement

Setting:

Located at the entrance to Beech Hill Country House Hotel (HB01/06/008), the lodge is set behind a pair of curved rubblestone screen walls with stacked coping and ashlar stone arrow slits. The walls are terminated by circular pillars having dressed sandstone mouldings and surmounted by rubblestone caps, in turn topped by carved stone beech tree finials.

Historical information

For generations the home of the Skipton family, Beech Hill is now a successful hotel. The oldest part of the present house has been dated to 1729. In the late 1860s extensive works were carried out to the house. An annotation from 1870 states, ‘a large add[itio]n to house in progress’. A further annotation reads, ‘Not finished – will not be finished for 12 mo[nth]s, March 1871’. In 1872 the value of the buildings was raised from £35 to £65, suggesting that the works had been completed, or at least were nearing completion’.

The works at this time included the construction of new gate lodge at the main entrance to the grounds. An undated annotation from c. 1870 reads, ‘See new gate lodge & off[ice]s in 1869’. In 1877 the gate lodge was distinguished from the rest of the buildings on the property and given the valuation of £5. In 1882, however, it was again valued with the other buildings.

Dean (p. 112) describes the gate lodge, adjoining entrance archway, and walls as ‘a most unusual and original entrance composition, a design in a sort of Scottish fairytale Picturesque vein.’ He suggests that the architect may have been Alexander ‘Greek’ Thomson or possibly even Young & Mackenzie. His reason for suggesting Thomson is the fact that the entrance gates are from a design by the Glasgow architect (published in Blackie, Villa and Cottage Architecture of 1863), though it is possible that the original design was adapted by Young & Mackenzie and Thomson was not involved directly.

Above the entrance archway is the Nicholson coat of arms. Since the Nicholsons did not purchase Beech Hill until the late 1870s, they were not responsible for initiating the gate lodge, though it is possible that the archway was an extension from shortly after they had come into possession of the property.

In 1979 an extension to the rear of the gate lodge was proposed and extensive renovations were proposed in the following year. By early 1983 these had been carried out to a high standard. The works included the replacement of the cast iron lattice windows with a timber window design of the same pattern.. A new kitchen and bathroom were also added at this time.

References

Primary sources:
Public Record Office of Northern Ireland
Valuation Revision Books, 1860-1930: VAL/12/B/32/1A-G
Valuers and Revaluation Binders, Faughan Ward, Ballyshasky townland, 1956-75 – VAL/4/C/6/3/15/2
Ordnance Survey 6-inch map, 1904-32 – OS/6/5/22/3
Northern Ireland Environment Agency
First Survey record – HB01/06/007
HB Records – HB01/06/007

Secondary sources:
Published sources
Alistair Rowan, The Buildings of Ireland: North West Ulster (Harmondsworth, 1979)
Dan Calley, City of Derry: An Historical Gazetteer to the Buildings of Londonderry (Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 2013)
J. A. K. Dean, The Gate Lodges of Ulster: a Gazetteer (Belfast, 1994)

Online sources
Dictionary or Irish Architects: www.dia.ie
Beech Hill website: http://www.beech-hill.com/our-story.aspx

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
U. Historic Associations
V. Authorship
X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity
R. Age
S. Authenticity

Evaluation

Detached asymmetrical two-bay single-storey with attic stone gate lodge with carriage arch and castellated structure to rear, built 1869 possibly to designs by Alexander 'Greek' Thompson or Young & Mackenzie. Despite the replacement windows that do not match the pattern of the cast iron originals and some internal alterations, it remains an eclectic composition of lodge and entrance screen which greatly differs in character to the former house it serves. Its Free Style design, popular in the High Victorian era, combined Gothic, Tudor and Arts & Crafts; it is greatly enhanced by the adjoining carriage arch screen, elaborate stone pillars and walling (gates are removed). The composition forms part of the wider collection of buildings within the landscaped grounds at Beech Hill Country House (HB01.06.008) and so is of special interest, not only as a lone building, but as part of a group.