Blackheath House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A symmetrical three-bay, two-and-a-half-storey-over-basement, rendered country house; built c.1790 to designs by Michael Shanahan and located to the east side of Killeague Road, south of Coleraine. Rectangular plan with single-storey projecting porch to northwest, modern single-storey extensions to northeast and southwest and modern garage to rear (of little interest).

Pitched natural slate roof with blue/black angled ridges tiles, raised masonry verges and ruled-and-lined rendered chimneystacks to gables having six tall clay pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on timber fascia boards. Walling is painted smooth render. Windows are 6/6 timber sash with horns and projecting painted sills at principal elevation (diminished at first floor); modern timber windows at basement and to all other elevations.

The principal elevation faces northwest and is three openings wide at each floor. Projecting porch to ground floor centre has round-headed replacement timber casement window to left and right cheek in rectangular recesses. Entrance, also in rectangular recess, comprises raised-and-fielded four-panel timber door with brass door furniture, surmounted by a radial timber fanlight and flanked by pilaster jambs with moulded imposts, archivolt and vermiculated keyblock. Porch accessed via a single sandstone step and flanked by replacement cast-iron railings on plinth wall enclosing basement. Basement channel now partially roofed.

The northeast elevation has three windows at attic (that to right is a 4/1 sash and lower) and window to first floor right. Abutted at ground-floor right by gabled single-storey-over-basement modern extension with adjoining flat-roof modern addition to basement at left.

The southeast (rear) elevation is five evenly-spaced windows wide at each floor; exposed basement has four windows and is abutted at right by the modern flat-roof garage.

The southwest gable has three windows at attic; fully abutted at ground floor by a large single-storey modern extension with conservatory entrance opening to northwest.

Setting:

Situated on a mature plot to the east side of Killeague Road, accessed via gravel drive from south with circular painted rubble stone piers having pointed caps at entrance. Drive leads to a small yard to southwest of house, enclosed by painted rubblestone walls with circular lime-washed gate piers having conical caps and supporting cast-iron gates. Outbuildings have been refurbished but retain a traditional appearance with slate roofs, lime-washed walls and timber-sheeted openings. To north side of yard, abutting the single-storey extension at southeast, is a single-storey modified outbuilding with bell-cote and bell to northwest gable, fully refurbished and now incorporated into the main house. Gravelled parking area to front of house with shrubbed turning circle. View of surrounding countryside to southeast.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Painted smooth render
Windows: Timber sash with horns and timber replacements
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

‘Blackheath’ dates from 1791-4 and is shown, captioned, on the first edition map of 1831-2 together with two outbuildings to the west which have survived. By the second edition of 1849-52, the building has changed dramatically in plan form, the house having been extended to the rear and sides.

The dwelling was built as the parish glebe house and is said to have been designed by Michael Shanahan, architect to the Earl Bishop of Derry and designer of Downhill. Although no documentary support for this attribution survives, Rankin points to the ‘reliance on proportion, on the relation of solid to void and not on ornament characteristic of most of his other ecclesiastical buildings’. (Rankin) The Board of First Fruits granted £100 towards the building of the glebe house in 1789 and it was constructed by Rev Henry Hervey Bruce, who was later knighted and became the first Baronet Downhill (Eccles; Lewis) The cost was £1,756. Samuel Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary notes that over the mantelpiece in the 1830s was a sculpture of Socrates ‘discovering his pupil Alcibiades in the haunts of dissipation’ which was brought from Italy by the Earl Bishop and given to Sir Henry Hervey Bruce, to whom he later bequeathed his entire property in Ireland. (Lewis) The sculpture was purchased by Bishop William Alexander, who had lived in the house as a boy, in 1884 and taken to Armagh. (Clergy of Derry and Raphoe)

The Townland Valuation (1828-40) records the house and offices, occupied by Rev Robert Alexander, at £24. OS Memoirs found it ‘good house...ornamented by a lawn and some plantations…Blackheath is so called from the dark colour of the heath that formerly grew over the neighbourhood’. The Rev Robert Alexander’s son, William Alexander spent his boyhood at Blackheath and later became Archbishop and Primate. His wife was Cecil Frances Alexander, celebrated hymn writer. (Clergy of Derry and Raphoe; Rankin) William Alexander’s memoirs recount how he was given a Shetland pony for his birthday and the old coachman, Barney, brought the pony up the stairs of the house to his bedroom, where he was confined with a cold. This incident may have happened at Blackheath where the Bishop moved when he was eight. (Mullin)

The house was valued at £23 in Griffith’s Valuation of 1856-64 and was situated in glebe land of over 120 acres. The house passed with incumbency of the parish for some years but by 1888 had been taken into private ownership, the Rothwell family being resident. In 1899 the valuation was reduced to £15 and the valuer noted that the owner had tried to let the property without success due to its remote position. Subsequent owners were William McCaw (1924) and the Kennedy Bros (1954). In the 1930s the accommodation comprised a basement that was practically disused, on the ground floor, a hall, two receptions, a kitchen, scullery, pantry, bathroom and WC, on the first floor, three bedrooms and two dressing/box rooms, and on the third floor, three attics that were also disused. The house had no electricity, gas or mains water supply, the bath, WC and scullery being fed by a rainwater tank. By 1955 the house was said to be dilapidated and the valuation was reduced to £5 and £5 for agricultural buildings. The building was completely derelict by the early 1970s and was restored at around this time by the Sarsfield family who discovered the original bell which would have called workers in from the fields. The Sarsfields replaced the bell in the stable bellcote.(Owner information)

The building was listed in 1977 and c1980 a flat-roofed extension was built to the side to house a swimming pool, but this was later converted to a sitting room. In the mid-1980s the basement of the house was converted into a restaurant which operated for some years. It appears that much refurbishment took place during this period including the addition of a lean-to conservatory entrance to the front elevation, however the former rectory has since reverted to a private house. (HB file)

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. PRONI VAL/3/C/6/3 First General Revaluation 1933-57
8. PRONI VAL/3/D/6/3/T/2 First General Revaluation 1933-57
9. Griffith’s Valuation online
10. HB file – 03/04/020

Secondary Sources

1. 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.
2. Eccles, J “Downhill, A Scrapbook of People and Place” London: Bath Press, 1996
3. Fawcett, FW Rev Canon; Crooks, DWT Rev Canon; Leslie JB Rev “Clergy of Derry and Raphoe” Ulster Historical Foundation, 1999
4. Lewis, Samuel. “A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland” London: S. Lewis & Co.,
5. 1837.
6. Mullin, Rev T H “Aghadowey, A Parish and its Linen Industry” Belfast, 1972
7. Owner information
8. Rankin, P “Irish Building Ventures of the Earl Bishop of Derry” Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1972

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
V. Authorship

Evaluation

A symmetrical three-bay two-and-a-half-storey-over-basement rendered country house; built c.1790 to designs by the distinguished architet Michael Shanahan and located to the east side of Killeague Road, south of Coleraine. Refurbished in recent decades, Blackheath House retains its overall external appearance, albeit with some modern alterations and additions. A group of outbuildings formed around a small yard add to the historic and architectural interest.

General comments

Listinf Criteria R - Age; S - Authenticity and T - Historic Importance also apply.