Collon House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A 2 storey, multi-gabled house, upper floors half timbered, steeply pitched roofs, roughcast finished walls, colour washed in Arts and Crafts style.

The principal and entrance front, 5 bays long with projecting 2 storey part half timbered at 1st floor and above, with 6 panelled entrance door on flank wall with plain rectangular fanlight over. Above door a projecting slated canopy supported on timber brackets, which returns across the gabled projection over the porch window and shall rectangular bay to the main reception room. The porch window consists of 6 fixed panes and the reception window 8 panes shallow filled with lead lights. At first floor 2, 2 light sliding sash windows symmetrically placed. Each lower sash has 3 panes horizontally divided and the upper sash 4 panes.

The next bay has 2 light D/H S/S windows similar to those last described and above a simple sliding sash 10 pane window, upper half of which breaks the eaves to form a gabled dormer. The next 2 bays are set further back and are of 1½ storeys. It abuts the gable of the last bay. At ground floor 2 single sliding sash 12 pane windows and above are of them a single small D/H S/S 4 pane window. These 2 bays terminate in a gable. The gable of the middle bay has a sliding sash 10 pane window near the corner.

The upper floors of the first 3 bays have half timbered wall treatment extending into the gables and above to the gabled dormer. Half way up the gables the vertical half timbering work becomes diagonal or herring bone in pattern.

Below the reception and porch windows are 2 no. basement windows their heads just appearing above ground level.
This elevation faces south east.

The north west elevation, 3 bays wide, again has a projecting gable, half timbered at 1st floor, which thrusts forward from the long wall of the principal reception room. In the angle formed is a small conservatory entered from the reception room. To the south of the conservatory a tall narrow sliding sash 6 pane window. Above the conservatory a small sliding sash 2 pane window under the eaves. The wall at this level is half timbered which continues round the flank of the projecting gable, where at ground level is another tall narrow sliding sash 6 pane window. The gable at ground floor has a centre D/H S/S 9 pane window, lower sash with horizontal astragals. On either side s are a little narrower sliding sash 9 pane windows. Above centred in the gable a 2 light sliding sash window in 6 panes each. At 1st floor the walls are similar treated in half timberwork as the principal gable.

To the rear of the house the kitchen wing 2 storeys high is similarly treated but the ground floor windows are on the flanking walls. Between the dining room and kitchen wings has been erected recently a 2 storey element partially filling the angle, though in keeping with the character of the original house. Likewise on the other side of the kitchen wing is a further but larger 2 storey extension but again in sympathy with the original there is minimum use of half timbering at 1st floor, indeed any banding appears to be painted smooth rendering, well done yet sufficiently different in pattern from the original.

The roofs form a flurry of intersecting planes in asbestos slates with plain ridges. The original chimneys have been kept but may be rebuilt in redbrick with oversailing courses.

The house is on flat ground set well back from the Buncrana Road but is well concealed by fine mature trees. It has a pleasant lawn to the south west and a former vegetable garden to the north west.

Behind the house are the former outbuildings and new garages have been added. However one group of stone outbuildings are neatly arranged around 3 sides of a court or farmyard with segmented arched openings and a central 2 storey gabled barn. The outhouses are cut off from the house by a random rubble stone wall.

Historical information

On the O.S.S 1830 Londonderry 13 is shown a house on the site of the present Collon House with a similar outline. The house was occupied for more than 6 decades of this century by the Hatrick family. St Columb’s College purchased the property in the early 1960s. From then until the end of the 1980s the occupant of the house was the Casey family. In 1994 the house was adapted to accommodate some of the teaching staff of the College. The house was probably much renovated in c1900 and the architectural style points to Albert Forman, though R.E. Buchanan was doing similar work at this time.

Architects for the adaptation were F.M.Corr & Associates and the builder Kennedy.

References

Primary Sources
1. O.S. map 1830 1st Edition Londonderry 13
2. Principal of College
3. M Hegarty, Architect

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

An Edwardian building in a vigorous Arts and Crafts style.The recent adaptations are in harmony with the 1900 renovation.