Flowerfield House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached symmetrical three-bay two-storey rendered house, built c.1816, with two-storey return and extensively renovated c.1990. T-shaped on plan facing south and forming part of a farm with rectangular cobbled yard to the rear lined with rubblestone outbuildings. Located at the end of a winding bitmac drive on the north side of Crevolea Road.

Pitched natural slate roof with roll moulded terracotta ridge tiles and rendered chimneystacks to both ends. Replacement rainwater goods to boxed timber fascia. Flint dash rendered walling. Square-headed window openings with smooth render surrounds, concrete sills and replacement timber sash windows with aluiminium covering.

Three-bay symmetrical front elevation is abutted by a central entrance porch with canted bay windows to either side. Hipped natural slate roofs to the bay windows with rolled lead ridges. Lead-lined roof to entrance porch with elliptical-headed door opening, reproduction tripartite timber glazed entrance screen and fanlight.

West gable has a central window opening to ground, first and attic levels, that to the attic being an original timber casement window.

Rear elevation abutted to the centre by a two-storey return with a single-storey lean-to addition to the northeast re-entrant angle, irregular fenestration and blank return gable.

East gable fenestrated as per west gable with a square-headed door opening to the right with replacement glazed timber door.

Setting:

Located on a mature wooded site to the north of Crevolea Road, accessed via a winding bitmac drive which divides to provide separate access to the rear yard. The drive opens onto the road via a pair of curved rough-cast rendered walls and piers. Rectangular shaped yard laid out in cobbles to the rear of the house with a two-storey lime-washed and rendered range to the west having natural slate roof, vertically-sheeted timber doors and external stone steps. Further single-storey and derelict rubblestone outbuildings line the remainder of the yard to the north and east.

Roof Replacement natural slate
RWG Replacement steel
Walling Flint dash render
Windows Replacement timber sash windows with aluminium covering

Historical information

The present dwelling house and former manse was built c1816 and has undergone later remodelling (OS Memoirs). A dwelling house and two of the outbuildings present on the site today are shown on the first edition OS map of 1831-2 together with driveways leading to the house and a garden to the west. By the second edition of 1849-52 further outbuildings have been added to the rear of the house, which is now captioned ‘Flower Field’. The grounds of the house are wooded with further tree planting along field boundaries. By the third edition of 1904 the house has been extended to the rear.

The house and offices are listed in the Townland Valuation (1856-64) as the residence of Mrs Hemphill and are valued at £18. OS Memoirs record ‘Flowerfield’ as a ‘neat dwelling house on a by-road from the mail coach road from Coleraine to the parish church’ and give the construction date as 'about the year 1816'. The Hemphill family were well-known locally as the owners of Greenfield bleach green which was situated to the west of the present house, Ballybritain, to the south and a further bleach green in the townlands of Mullan/Crevolea (OS Memoirs). The present dwelling house does not appear, however, to have been associated directly with a bleach green.

Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) lists the occupier as Samuel L Cox MD who leases the holding of over 13 acres from William Hemphill. The house and offices are valued at £20. Subsequent residents were William Hemphill (1867) Robert Lees (1873) and Thomas Barklie (1874). From the 1870s the house became the manse for Agahdowey Presbyterian Church and Rev James Huston was resident from 1876 followed by Rev Gilbert Kennedy (1894) and Rev S W Morrison (1902). Married father-of-two Rev Samuel W Morrison was living in the house at the time of the 1911 census, although his family were elsewhere. One servant was resident. The dwelling continues in domestic use.
The current owner confirmed that the porch was added in the 1990s.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/5/11/1 First Edition OS Map 1831-2
2. PRONI OS/6/5/11/2 Second Edition OS map 1849-52
3. PRONI OS/6/5/11/3 Third Edition OS Map 1904
4. PRONI OS/6/5/11/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1923
5. PRONI VAL/1/B/51 Townland Valuation (1828-40)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/1A-F Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
7. Griffith’s Valuation online

Secondary Sources

1. “A History of Congregations in the Presbyterian Church in Ireland 1610-1982” authorised by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Belfast: Presbyterian Historical Society of Ireland, 1982 (available at www.presbyterianhistoryireland.com)
2. Day, A., P. McWilliams, English L., eds. “OS Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of County Londonderry VI, 1831, 1833, 1835-6, Vol. 22.” Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1993.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
R. Age
S. Authenticity

Evaluation

Detached symmetrical three-bay two-storey rendered house, built c.1816, with two-storey return and extensively renovated c.1990. T-shaped on plan facing south and forming part of a farm with rectangular cobbled yard to the rear lined with rubblestone outbuildings. Built as the home of a linen merchant the building later served as a manse and retains much of its early nineteenth-century character with good proportions and symmetry. The interior retains much of its original joinery details. This is a substantial farmhouse enhanced by a mature setting with a rare cobbled rear yard and well proportioned outbuildings, wrought iron gates, pillars and original gate screen.

General comments

Listing Criteria R - Age and S - Authenticity also apply.