Rose Cottage

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Large vernacular thatched cottage facing west at slight angle to Aghanloo Road. Four two pane sliding sash windows equally spaced to each side of centrally placed entrance door with open timber lattice work porch. Walls painted white with black base line, stone cills and window jambs also black. Thatch abuts gable. Projecting slate drip at change from gable to wall. Saw tooth brick on edge along junction of wall and thatch. Four chimneys on apex of roof two on gables two on either side of entrance.

The roof timberwork is original.

No opening on south gable.

East elevation has two four pane sash windows near south end. A recent flat roof extension (1996) sits out four metres approximately from under the thatch and is about two thirds the length of the original building. It has PVC guttering, a felt roof and different sized casement windows detailed to resemble sashes when closed.

The north elevation has one small four pane off centre sash at low level.

The building has a triangular courtyard behind formed by white washed barn buildings with corrugated iron roofs. The courtyard is concreted. A lawn to the front of the house is 700mm approximately above the road, dropping down suddenly to the carriageway at its end. A path below the level of the lawn rises from the road to the front door.

The thatch on the roof is both flax and wheat.

Historical information

A building, which appears to match the present, is shown on this site on the OS map of 1831. This property is recorded in the valuation of c.1833 as the home of a Mrs Church, with the relatively high rateable value of £7-7-0. Unfortunately no dimensions or quality letter are supplied, so we have no indication of how old the valuers believed the house to be at that stage.

The second valuation of 1857 lists the occupant as one Charles Allen with John Martin Esq the immediate lessor. By this stage the rateable valuation had dropped to £5-10-0, though this figure is still quite respectable for such a house in this area.

The fact that the northern half of this building is built (largely) in basalt and the southern half in brick indicates that the property was extended at some point. The abovementioned OS maps, and the relatively high rateable value of the property in c.1833, strongly suggests that the building had assumed its current form prior to this date. The present owner (November 1997) states that he believes that Frederick Hervey, the famous Earl Bishop of Derry, (1730-1803, Bishop of Derry from 1768), stayed in the house at some point in the 1790s, but there appears to be no evidence to substantiate this.

The present owner’s ancestor acquired the property c.1900, prior to which it was in the hands of a Dr McCloskey and known as ‘The Manor House’. The porch was added in the early 1900s, and is supposedly based on a similar structures the then occupant had seen in America. Up until the 1930s an attic storey was in use as bedrooms, lighted by (now blocked) gable windows. The house underwent a major renovation in 1996, when the flat-roofed extension was added, (replacing a lean-to) and the internal layout reorganised.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/1A/5/5 OS map, County Londonderry sheet 5, with valuation
references, (1830 / 31-c.38)
2 PRONI VAL/1B/511 First valuation, Aghanloo, (c.1833)
3 PRONI VAL/2A/5/5B Revised OS map, County Londonderry sheet 5, with valuation references, (1857)
4 PRONI VAL/2B/5/17A Second valuation, Aghanloo, (1857)

Secondary sources
1 Information supplied by the owner (November 1997)

The building is built of basalt with brick trim in the northern half and of brick in the southern half and thus has been extended by four bays since originally built. It is shown on the 1830 Ordnance Survey Map, but is certainly much older. The owner relates that the Earl Bishop stayed in the house in the 1790s but there is no evidence to substantiate this. The present owner's family have owned the house since 1900 prior to which it was owned by a Dr McCloskey and known as the Manor House. The flat roof extension of 1996 replaced a leanto asbestos roof extension. The porch was added in the early part of this century by the great grandfather of the present occupant who had seen similar constructions in America. Before the 1930s an attic storey was in use as bedrooms and gable windows now blocked lighted these. The 1996 renovations also reorganised the internal plan. To the left of the entrance a door now blocked up entered the bedroom. The end bedroom was formerly two rooms, one lit by each window.

References:

Owner (Nov 1997)
Historic Buildings Record Files

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Z. Rarity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

An unusually large and well preserved thatched house in a sheltered location between Aghanloo Church of Ireland and the old graveyard which enhances the character of this part of the Aghanloo Road. The windows are large and symmetrically aligned around the entrance giving a formality to the elevation which suggests the influence of classical ideas. The plan has been altered and much of the original detail removed, but the entrance corridor, door to the kitchen with side window, deserve to be preserved as a typical vernacular detail of the area, the unusual fireplaces in the corner of rooms is also of note, a similar detail was found in the lodge at Milltown HB02/09/039. The building is of national importance as a pleasing piece of architecture and of local and social interest as a largely unaltered example of the house of a large tenant farmer circa 1830 in this part of Co Londonderry.