CLOVER FARM

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached four-bay two-storey gabled stone house, built c.1860-62 with hipped roof extension to east side. Rectangular on plan facing south on an elevated site on the west side of Killea Road with three ranges of outbuildings to the southeast, east and north that together with rubble-stone walling, enclose a farmyard to the rear (N).

Artificial slate roof with synthetic ridge tiles, hipped to the east with two replacement rendered chimneystacks. UPVC rainwater goods and timber sheeted box fascia. Random coursed schist walling to front elevation only, rough-cast rendered to west gable and rear elevations, smooth rendered to east elevation with smooth rendered quoins and window surrounds; toothed. Square-headed window openings with painted masonry sills and reveals (black) and generally 6/6 sliding timber sash windows.

SOUTH ELEVATION -
Four-bay principal (S) elevation with the easternmost bay smooth rendered, added mid twentieth century. Original house is symmetrical, with one bay either side of entrance door. Tripartite windows to the ground floor with 4/4 to the centre flanked by 2/2 sliding timber sash windows; 6/6 timber sliding sash windows above, aligned with first floor openings. Elliptical-headed door opening with flat-panelled timber door having bolection mouldings and brass furniture. Door flanked by sidelights over painted timber apron panels; four scrolled console brackets support lintel cornice and spoked fanlight over. Door opens onto sandstone platform on two concentric steps to stone paved front area within front lawn. Square-headed door opening to the east bay (extension) with timber glazed double doors; 6/6 timber sliding sash window to first floor over.

WEST ELEVATION -
West gable is blank and abutted by rubblestone walling centred on the ridge, behind which a single storey flat-roofed extension (of little interest) sits to the north.

NORTH ELEVATION -
Rear (N) elevation has randomly-placed windows and an off-centre door opening with replacement boarded timber stable-type varnish stained hardwood door opening onto concrete paved rear farmyard. To first floor, four timber sliding sashes, more or less evenly spaced and aligned with those to front, the three to right side each have 6/6 lights, whilst the window to the left (E) has 4/4 light. To ground floor, modern uPVC casement windows on thin concrete cills flank the back entrance door and a further small casement window, which serves the upstairs WC, sits between the two of the sash windows at first floor.

EAST ELEVATION -
Symmetrical east side elevation with two windows to the ground floor and three windows to the first floor. Replacement timber casement windows to the ground floor with 6/6 sliding timber sash windows to the central bay at first floor level with slender 2/2 regency style sliding timber sash windows to either side.

MATERIALS:
Roof Artificial slate
RWG UPVC
Walling Rubble-stone (S); Roughcast render (N&W); Smooth render (E)
Windows Sliding timber sash (S, 1st Fl W & E); timber casement (GF – E); uPVC (GF – N)

SETTING:
Located on a sloping site on the west side of Killea Road with single-storey rubble-stone outbuildings to the east and southeast and a two-storey rubble-stone outbuilding to the rear (north) that acts as a retaining structure against the embankment. The outbuildings to the north and east are connected at the corner by a further outbuilding, which has a corrugated asbestos sheet roof, opens to the north face and is not of special interest; collectively they form an L-shaped plan.

Front gravel driveway through front lawn opening onto the road via pair of cast metal gates (replacement) hung on square rubble-stone piers and s-plan gate screen wall with rendered quoins and stone caps. Further wrought-iron gate adjacent to the southeast corner of house hung on rubblestone piers opening into rear yard. Generally pitched natural slate roofs to outbuildings with corbelled red brick to eaves and brick lined window and door openings; fixtures and rainwater goods missing although a few rise-n-fall cast iron brackets remain.

SOUTHEAST OUTBUILDING -
The southeast outbuilding is set perpendicular to Killea Road with its gable end open save for some vertical timber boarding remaining above eaves level; it is used to house farm machinery and there has been some concrete block repair to jambs either side of the full-width opening; a square rubble-stone pillar with pyramidal cap abuts its northeast corner and demarks the entrance to the farmyard. All openings are square-headed; the north elevation has a central door opening flanked by windows; the west gable has a single window at loft level with timber lintel over; and the south elevation is blank with a series of regularly spaced square indents with splayed heads on a continuous stone cill set at knee-height (thought to have possibly been used as feeders). Stone walling abuts the southwest corner of this outbuilding and returns at 90 degrees to adjoin a set of square stone pillars at the east side of the house.

EAST OUTBUILDING -
The east outbuilding, orientated northeast-southwest, aligned to the edge of the Killea Road sits perpendicular and to north of the other single storey rubble-stone outbuilding (described above); this building is thought to pre-date the current house and is shown on the first OS Map c.1830. Elevation fronting onto the road (E) has a door placed more or less centrally with two rows of vent slots either side, square headed top row and round to bottom row. To the opposite side facing the yard, one large opening offset to the left with two rows of vents slots to right. South gable has two openings centred on the ridge; door to ground floor now in-filled with corrugated metal sheeting and timber; and window to the loft above. North gable abutted by a mono-pitched outbuilding; a segmental archway from that latter that opens into the yard is now in-filled.

NORTH OUTBUILDING -
Two storey north outbuilding, approximately six-bays wide but with typical informal arrangement of openings; mix of windows and doors to both ground and first floor of south elevation onto yard; one remaining metal casement window with 4/4 lights. Vertically sheeted timber shutters to two first floor openings nearest to west. North elevation, single storey, with two door openings randomly placed; otherwise blank. West gable end is blank.

Historical information

No. 18 Killea Road, a two-storey four-bay farmhouse located in the townland of Killea, was constructed in c. 1860-62. The mid-Victorian dwelling, which is also known as ‘Clover Farm’ was constructed on the site of an earlier property that dated from at least the early-19th century. The first edition Ordnance Survey map shows that the single-storey rubble-stone outbuilding (located to the east of the current house along the Killea Road) had been constructed by 1830. This map also depicted a rectangular-shaped structure located to the north-east of the current farmhouse (now demolished) which most likely was utilised as the first dwelling on the site. The 1831 Census and Townland Valuation (c.1834) record that the farm was occupied by a Mr. Thomas McCorkell, a local Gentleman. The Townland Valuation described McCorkell’s original house as a single-storey 3C class dwelling (that is a thatched, old building which was out of repair) that measured 54.6ft in width by 17.6ft in depth and 6ft in height. McCorkell’s farm included a cowhouse and was valued at £3 and 10 shillings.

There was little change to the layout of the farm by the second edition map of 1853 which depicted the two buildings along the same layout they possessed in 1830. The second Valuation (1857) records that McCorkell leased the site from The Honourable The Irish Society and that his house and outbuildings (excluding any land) were valued at £3. In 1862 the rateable value of the buildings doubled to £6. This increase, coupled with the style of the house, and the evidence presented by an 1859 design by County Surveyor Stewart Gordon for a house at Killea (which shows a building practically identical to the current dwelling -minus the later extension), all suggests that the house dates from this time, i.e. 1860-62. James Stevens Curl, in his ‘The Londonderry Plantation , 1609-1914 (Phillimore & Co., 1986) pp.414-15, states (somewhat inexplicably) that the house plan drawn up by Gordon was ‘not built at Killea, but at Molenan’, but clearly this was not the case.

Thomas McCorkell continued to reside at the farm in Killea until his death in 1879 at which time the property passed to John McCorkell, a local farmer. Upon John McCorkell’s death in 1887 the farm was acquired by a Mr. Walter Glenn. Glenn only briefly resided at Killea and by 1901 the farm was occupied by a Mr. Robert Gallagher. The third edition Ordnance Survey map (1904) depicted the farmhouse as an L-shaped building (its rear return has since been demolished) and noted that the outbuilding to the north-east side of the dwelling had been erected by the turn of the 20th century.

Gallagher purchased the farm outright in 1908 and in 1911 the census described the farmhouse as a 2nd class dwelling that consisted of 10 rooms and noted that its outbuildings were utilised as a stable, cow house, dairy, piggery, a fowl house and a barn. Gallagher vacated the farm in Killea in 1922 when the Cole family took over the site. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57) the value of the farmhouse and its outbuildings was increased to £23 and 10 shillings but by the end of the Second Revaluation this value was further raised to £48 and 10 shillings. This concurs with map evidence from 1924 and 1971, which indicates that the hipped roofed two-storey extension was added to the east gable of the house within this time period. Based on its appearance, particularly the sliding sash windows, it may be as early as the 1930s, but it is difficult to be certain of this.

Clover Farm was listed in 1979 and continued to be utilised as a private farm dwelling.

References

Primary Sources
1. PRONI OS/6/5/20/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1830)
2. PRONI OS/6/5/20/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1853)
3. PRONI OS/6/5/20/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1904)
4. PRONI OS/6/5/20/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1924-25)
5. PRONI VAL/1/A/5/20 – Townland Valuation Map (c. 1830)
6. PRONI VAL/1/B/547A-F – Townland Valuations (c. 1834)
7. PRONI VAL/2/B/5/16A – Griffith’s Valuation (1857)
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/32/10A-10G – Annual Revisions (1860-1929)
9. PRONI VAL/3/C/6/9 – First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57)
10. PRONI VAL/4/B/5/22 – Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956-72)
11. Ulster Town Directories (1852-1943)
12. PRONI Wills Catalogue (8 Feb 1879; 8 Mar 1887)
13. Census of Ireland (1831; 1901; 1911)
14. First Survey Record – HB01/12/001 (1972)
15. NIEA HB Records – HB01/12/001

Secondary Sources
1. Curl, James Stevens ‘The Londonderry Plantation , 1609-1914’ (Phillimore & Co., 1986) pp.414-15
2. Calley, D., ‘City of Derry: An historical gazetteer to the buildings of Londonderry’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 2013 (includes 1899 Valuation Map).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
X. Local Interest
R. Age

Evaluation

Clover Farm, a detached three-bay two-storey stone house, was built c. 1860-62 and thought to have been designed by Stewart Gordon, surveyor for The Honourable the Irish Society. Rectangular on plan facing south on the west side of Killea Road with three ranges of outbuildings forming an enclosed farmyard to the rear. Although Victorian, the building has simple Georgian style fenestration (albeit including an ornate door case with elliptical fanlight); the mid-20th century extension to its east side adopts similar proportions and is in keeping with its character, whilst legible as a later addition. Despite some replacement fabric such as artificial roof slates and a few casement windows, the house is a very good example of its type. The original plan form remains together with historic detailing consistent with its time and style. The rubble-stone boundary walls and gated entrances to the house and the yard significantly enhance the setting. Overall, the house and associated group of surviving stone outbuildings form a distinctive roadside farmholding in this elevated rural location.