Dogleap House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A long two storey harled and painted country house with stone bays topped by half timbered dormers in a late Arts and Crafts style. Main elevation facing south towards the Dogleap is a former gable with two bays at 45º to the main block projecting from each corner. These bays are segmental at their ends with sandstone Tuscan columns hiding window mullions on each floor.

The entrance is on the west elevation with a projecting sand cement porch near the front of the house.To the north of this fenestration changes from wide casement windows in the Arts and Crafts style to a more traditional regularily spaced Georgian twelve pane sash arrangement on each floor.The roof level also drops at this point.

The east elevation is perpendicular to the road entering the Roe Valley Country Park before it turns left at the entrance drive to the house. This elevation has been formerly considered. To the front the bays stick out from a main block with hipped roof and central rectangular bay. To the rear the old house has been given dormer projections to some first floor windows and the mullion arrangement has been changed to relate more to the style of the front portion. Beside the house the ground level rises slowly and this is matched by dropping ridge lines on the house ending in a small coach house at the northern end.

To the south and west the garden has been landscaped and is formally laid out.

Historical information

Building indicated on 1831 map and called ‘Roe Green’ in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1833-35: “The Roe green is situated close to the interesting spots of Dogleap and Lady O’Cahan’s Castle. It was built in 1828 on the site of some office houses by William Knox Esquire, and is now occupied by William Pollock. It is a good house the property of James Alexander Esquire.” The house remained the property of the Alexander’s and by the 1890s was the home Mrs Elizabeth Robertson, a daughter of Jane Alexander and Edward Ritter. She was involved in a legal dispute with her brother John Ritter over water rights at Dogleap (see HB02/13/010). Her daughter Miss Dorothy Robertson inherited the farm in 1924 and set about renovations to the house and existing mill workings. Prior to the renovations the house was an eight bay arrangement with projecting porch and an end bay to the south slightly taller than the rest of the house. There was a conservatory on the south gable. The re-organisation was carried out by architects Buchanan and Reid and included an ornamental garden still remaining to the south and west. The building has largely been unaltered since. The present owner bought the house in the early 1980s.

References:
0SS Map 1831
The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol. 9
J Stevenson - Electricity from the Red River - (NIE) p.19 (includes photograph of building before renovation)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A picturesquely sited country house with fine large modelled bays facing south towards the Dogleap. The west elevation particularly the dormers to the rear, is less convincing in its chosen architectural expression and seems less rigorously detailed. From a distance however it gives the desired effect in the landscape. The alterations to the original building have given it an early twentieth century architectural character.(1920-1924.) It thus lacks the rarity and architectural integrity which might have made it a candidate for listing.