The Keepers Lodge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached symmetrical three-bay one-and-a-half-storey stone former game-keeper’s house, built c.1885, with gabled breakfront. Extensively renovated and extended to the rear with portico added c.1987. Located on the north side of Mussenden Road within its own landscaped grounds to the east of Downhill House (HB03/12/015A) and Bishop’s Gate (HB03/12/015F).

Hipped natural slate roof with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles and pair of redbrick chimneystacks with octagonal clay pots. A single wall-head dormer added to both side elevations and a further two to the rear elevation, added c.1987. Cast-iron guttering on redbrick eaves course and cast-iron downpipes. Random coursed and snecked rubble basalt walling with squared basalt quoins. Gauged redbrick flat-arched window openings with painted masonry sills and replacement 6/6 timber sash windows with part-exposed sash boxes.

Symmetrical front elevation is four windows wide with a gabled shallow entrance breakfront abutted by later entrance portico. Oculus to the attic level of breakfront formed in redbrick with circular window having leaded coloured glazing. Two window openings to either side of breakfront are set into shallow round-arched recesses having gauged redbrick arches connected by painted masonry impost courses. Replacement square-headed door opening formed in redbrick with replacement timber panelled and glazed door opening onto terracotta tiled platform and three steps sheltered by timber sheeted gable-fronted canopy supported on pair of masonry Doric columns.

West side elevation has an off-centre window opening to the ground floor with gauged redbrick head and replacement multi-pane timber casement window. Wall-head dormer is centrally placed with timber sheeting and timber casement window dropping below eaves level.

Rear elevation abutted by multi-bay one-and-a-half-storey stone extension, added c.1987, built in rubble basalt and detailed as per original block with timber oriel window to the rear gable and timber conservatory abutting the re-entrant angle to the east.
East side elevation as per west side elevation having a 6/6 timber sash window to the ground floor only.

Setting
Located on the north side of Mussenden Road accessed via long winding cobblelock drive through mature landscaped gardens enclosed to the road by rubble basalt walls with stacked coping. Cobblelock encircles house with a further detached stone structure to the rear.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Cast-iron
Walling Random coursed and snecked basalt
Windows Replacement timber sash / timber casement

Historical information

The Keeper’s Lodge first appears, uncaptioned, on the third edition OS map of 1904, with ‘Kennels’ (now gone) captioned to the rear. However, the building appears to be a remodel of an earlier school on the same site which is depicted on the first edition of 1831 (captioned ‘School’) and on the second edition of 1848, captioned ‘Hibernian School’. The positioning of the school on the first edition OS map appears to be inaccurate.

The school for boys and girls was established in 1824 by the Kildare Society, at a cost of £119. The Kildare Place Society, founded in 1811 in Dublin, provided financial support for non-denominational education for the poor. Sir James Robertson Bruce, the second baronet Downhill, donated the land for the building and subsidised the teachers’ salaries. (Eccles)

OS Memoirs of 1835 record that the male and female school was built of stone and lime and was slated but had an earthen floor. The children paid a penny ha’penny per week to learn reading, writing and arithmetic and a further penny for spelling. When it was a school house the building was entered by doors to the end gables and a wall in the centre of the building separated the girls from the boys. A Sunday school was held in the building from 9 to 11 o’clock after which the children would attend their respective places of worship. In 1872 the third baronet built a new school in a neighbouring townland and the old school fell into disuse.

The building re-enters valuation records as a ‘gamekeeper’s house’ in 1885 valued at £3, having been remodelled for domestic use by Sir Henry Hervey Bruce, third baronet, for his gamekeeper as part of several improvements carried out to the estate in the 1870s and 80s. (Eccles) The plan of the building on the third edition of the OS map shows that a rear extension and kennels were added to the site as part of this remodelling and the building may also have been raised.

The first occupier to be noted in the house c1885 is Samuel Gray, the estate gamekeeper. There are frequent changes of occupier over the years but Samuel Gray returned to the house several times and it is Gray who is recorded as resident at the time of the 1911 census. He was married with three young children in 1911 and the family kept a domestic, a sixteen-year-old girl from Lisburn. The seven-room house was designated second class.

At the time of the First General Revaluation in 1933/4, the estate carpenter and caretaker John Cunningham was living in the house. Dimensions are given for the house and the single-storey return as well as the former kennels at the rear which were then being used as a chicken house. Accommodation comprised a reception, kitchen and scullery on the ground floor and three bedrooms on the upper floor.

The first survey photograph shows that in 1975 the central pedimented breakfront was rendered and a small pitched-roof porch with gothic doorway formed the main entrance.

The building was listed in 1977 and in the early 1990s a number of alterations were made. The front elevation has now been substantially altered, the render and porch removed and ornamental bargeboards and a large porch canopy with supporting pillars erected in its place. A large extension and conservatory have been built to the rear and the former kennel block has been demolished and replaced with a new rubblestone outbuilding. (HB file)

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/5/2/1 First Edition OS Map 1831
2. PRONI OS/6/5/2/2 Second Edition OS map 1848
3. PRONI OS/6/5/2/3 Third Edition OS Map 1904
4. PRONI OS/6/5/2/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1923
5. PRONI VAL/1/B/55A Townland Valuation (1828-40)
6. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/55B Griffiths Valuation (1861)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/10AF Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
1. PRONI VAL/3/C/6/2 First General Revaluation 1933-57
2. PRONI VAL/3/D/6/3/H/4 First General Revaluation 1933-57
3. PRONI D1514 - Hervey/ Bruce papers
8. 1901 census online
9. 1911 census online
10. HB file – 03/12/013

Secondary Sources

1. Day, A., P. McWilliams, eds. “OS Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of County Londonderry III, 1831-5, Vol. 11.” Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1991.
2. Eccles, J “Downhill, A Scrapbook of People and Place” London: Bath Press, 1996
3. 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
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
T. Historic Importance
X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

Detached symmetrical three-bay one-and-a-half-storey stone former kennel-keeper’s house, built c.1880, with gabled breakfront. Located on the north side of Mussenden Road within its own landscaped grounds to the east of Downhill Palace and Bishop’s Gate (HB03/12/015F). Extensively renovated c.1987, this former kennel-keeper’s house has had most original materials replaced. While the front porch detracts from the front elevation, most replacement materials have been sympathetic in character and it has group value with the rest of the listed structures on the Downhill Estate. The building has social interest as it was originally constructed as a Kildare society school with land donated by Sir James Robertson Bruce, the second baronet Downhill who also subsidised the teacher's salaries.

General comments

Renumbered as part of a group. Formerly HB03/12/013.
Listing Criteria R - Age; and T - Historic Importance also apply.