Drenagh Estate Gardener’s House & Barn

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A three storey range of out-houses 30 metres long by 4 metres wide built of roughly squared sandstone with some galleting running in a south east direction from the range of out-houses described in HB02/11/002B. At the end of this range and placed at right angles to it and running in north east direction a wider range of similar height measuring approximately 17 metres long by 7½ wide built similarly. A later cart shed abutting the walled garden and supported on cast iron columns encloses a farmyard now marked out as a tennis court. All the doors and windows look onto the farmyard and are square headed. Openings in the wider range are arranged symmetrically. Roofs are slated and hipped with ridge ventilations. A high wing wall extends from the north west gable of the longer range of houses approx. 12 metres in a north east direction to enclose the farmyard.

On the south east side of the wider range and against it is built a 1½ storey former gardener’s dwelling. It is two bays wide with entrance door in a lean-to porch in north east gable. Two Georgian paned windows of unequal width light the south east ground floor with hipped dormers above with Georgian paned casements. In the south west gable a sash window on the ground floor and another in the gable apex. The building is smooth rendered and painted pale pink (part of the porch is timber) and overlooks its own garden which is bounded on one side by a low wall which leads to the moon garden and on the other side by the high wall of the walled garden.

On the north west gable of the first range of out-houses described, is an arched double door opening with a water pump to one side.

Historical information

The gardener’s house and the two ranges of out-houses would appear to be part of the original Fruithill House of c1730 and are shown on the Ordnance Survey Map of 1830. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs says “very good office houses are attached to the house”. The front of the original house looked south west as again the Ordnance Survey Memoirs says “The front of the house looks on a lawn ornamented with flower plots and single forest trees, through whose rich foliage appear the distant mountains of Inishowen”. The gardener’s house would therefore have been separated from the main garden by the wall referred to above.

UAHS Buildings of North Derry by Girvan

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

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A good example of early Georgian building and historically illustrates the out-houses of the original Fruithill House.