Outbuildings

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A 2 storey stone built farm building with slated and hipped roof.

A 10 bay long range of outbuildings facing N W onto a spacious farmyard which abuts Knockan house on its S E side. The openings, both doors and windows, have no regularity and consists of single doors with square headed, stone lintoled and louvred windows likewise. As the farmyard falls to the N E so the floor levels change. One wider opening to the N E is 3 centred in stone. Walls built of sandstone are partly coursed rubble for the ground floor and random rubble above. Cills are crude sandstone. The roof slated, with clay ridge and hip tiles without chimneys. The gable and rear walls are without interest other than the stone walls.

There are several other ruinous stone outbuildings around the sides of the farmyard and along the lanes leading from it. The rear access to Knockan House passes through the farmyard.

Historical information

There is a date on the building on a decorative stone plaque with the initials W E S, 1721. Below it a plain stone – restored 1870. Judging by the stonework variation it could be that the 1870 work involved adding the upper floor. The outbuildings appear on the 1830 O.S. map. The Stevensons were described as linen merchants in the 2nd half of the 18th cent. O.S. Memoirs suggest the datestone may refer to the house. This could also be the property referred to in the O.S. Memoirs which states “the property of John Stevenson and Company. One building contains the boiling house, the wash mill, the lapping room and drying loft, another the beetling engines and the rub-board”. There is a beetling mill indicated on O.S. Map 1830 on the other side of the Owenbeg River. (see HB02/05/032).

References

Primary Sources
1. O.S. Map 1830 Londonderry sh. 30
2. O.S. Map 1830 Rev. 1856 Londonderry sh. 30
3. O.S. Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of Londonderry X, 1833-4, 1839
Ed by Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams Q.U.B. p.20, 30

Secondary Sources
1. Rowan, Buildings of Ireland, North West Ulster p. 294

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
D. Plan Form
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A long rectangular 2 storey stone built farm building of the 18th and 19th cent and probably used as a linen warehouse before the demise of the industry. Has important group value with Knockan House.