Hampstead Hall

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A 2 storey 5 bay wide smooth rendered and colour washed house with central fanlighted doorway with hipped slated roof and basement in the Georgian style.

The south facing entrance façade has a fine 6 panelled door with ¾ engaged Tuscan Doric columns on each side set on stone blocking piece and supporting good cornice with modillions under. Glazed screens on each side, the upper parts divided into small square panes with solid panel below. Matching pilaster responds. Over, an elliptical fanlight subdivided with radiating astragals and the whole doorcase set in recessed reveals with matching arch. In front of the doorway 2 broad sandstone steps. On each side 2 sliding sash windows with 12 panes. On first floor 5 sliding sash windows with 9 panes each immediately above the openings below. Openings all well proportioned with good relation between solid and void. Windows have suspended sandstone cills. There is no cornice but the cast iron gutter is a wide deep box with the upper part ogee shaped and forming the equivalent of a cornice. The gutter is supported on decorative vertical supports secured to wall at approximately 750 mm crs. with fillet moulding under. The bottom of the wall has a plinth with simple chamfer in sandstone. Quoins also in sandstone are short and long and painted.

The east and west elevations are 3 bays wide with windows similar to principal façade. Gutter is carried round both sides with decorative supports and running fillet. Quoins are returned and there is a chamfered string course over rubble stone wall to basement. There are 3 windows to basement on east side, each sliding sash with 9 panes while on the west side windows have 12 panes. Windows on both sides to basement are trimmed with redbrick block bonded to stonework.

The rear elevation has a semi-circular 2 storey projecting bay with French windows at ground level and central above an arched tall 21 pane sliding sash window which lights staircase at half landing. Both openings are trimmed with brick similar to basement windows. The wall is finished with exposed random rubble schist stonework, full height. Painted quoins are returned from the east and west elevations. The gutter as before continues along the rear wall handsomely curved around the bay with stubby C.I. corbel supports. There is one C.I. downpipe on this wall draining the entire roofs. Basement is not expressed on the rear. Brick garden dividing walls abut the rear wall at each side.

The roof is hipped with natural blue slates with lead hips and short ridge. The ridge is broken by 2 plain rendered and coloured chimney stacks with simple cap.

The house originally sat in a large expanse of landscaped garden but in the last 30 years housing development has encroached and the avenue gone. The gate piers remain (see HB01/25/+005B). The garden is now much reduced in size with a short avenue approach on one side and another from an adjacent housing road. The front garden is formally laid out with central path leading to the front door. The garden to the east is laid out as a Japanese piece, while the west side is done in an Italinate manner with a sunken paved area which is about level with a seated eye in the basement living room. Steps lead from the rear court to the sunken stone paved area and more steps lead down to the basement floor level.

Behind the house the courtyard, formed by house, U-shaped outbuildings and garden walls, is being stone paved. The outbuildings are 2 storeys built of random rubble stone, brick trim and arched gateway and windows. Several of the windows have been repositioned to achieve symmetry. There is only a margin strip of ground around the outside walls of the outbuildings to the housing development.

Historical information

There was a house here in the early 19th century and one is shown on the O.S. Map 1832 with less depth than the present one but with a small squared back return and L shaped outbuildings. The house was then called Greenhaw. In 1837 the O.S. Memoir records a William K McClintock residing. The O./S. map of 1856 shows the plan of the house unchanged but the outbuildings extended. The house was at this time called Hampstead. The present owner thought the present house was rebuilt around c1850 with previous one dating from 1820.

The housed was owned from 1959 to 1979 by a Mr Halliday, later by a Dr Duff who sold the land for housing development and erected a bungalow nearby. The present owner bought the house with existing gardens and outbuildings in 1982. During the second world war the land was occupied with military huts etc.

The present owner has set about restoring the house and recapturing its architectural character and detailing.

References

Primary Sources
1. UAFP O.S. Map 1832 Londonderry 13
2. UAFP O.S. Map 1st Rev Londonderry 13
3. Memoir of the City and North Western Liberties of Londonderry p206.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H+. Alterations enhancing the building
I. Quality and survival of Interior

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A pleasing example of a country villa erected in the early Victorian period in a typically restrained Georgian style. Both externally and internally the detail is carefully restored and the overall house proportions as well as the interiors of the principal spaces are good.