Ratheane Private Nursing Home

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached asymmetrical gabled multi-bay two-storey rendered nursing home, built c.1890, with four-stage tower to the centre. Irregular on plan facing east and set within its own paved grounds on the west side of Mountsandel Road with two L-plan ranges of three-storey extensions abutting the rear, built between 1980 and 2010.

Hipped natural slate roofs with roll-moulded terracotta ridge and hip tiles and rendered chimneystacks. Timber bargeboards to gables and fascia to boxed eaves supporting replacement metal rainwater goods. Painted ruled-and-lined rendered walling with moulded plinth course, continuous first floor sill course and panel rusticated rendered quoins. Generally segmental-headed window openings with masonry sills, architrave surrounds and uPVC windows throughout.

Asymmetrical front elevation comprises a pair of double-height gables, a set back wing to the left and a central square-plan four-stage tower having a double-ogee slate roof and copper ball finial. Windows arranged in pairs to the gables with hood mouldings and set over a pair of canted bay windows sharing a single slate roof. Hood mouldings to the tower windows and a flat-roofed entrance porch added to the re-entrant angle, c.1985.

Side elevation abutted by a single-storey wing and flat-roofed extension.

Rear elevation abutted by a pair of three-storey L-plan extensions obscuring the original elevation.

Secondary south side elevation is six windows wide with three full-height gables and a bay window. String course between floors and hood mouldings to all window openings, segmental-headed to the first floor, square-headed to the ground floor.

Setting
Located within its own paved site set back to the west of Mountsandel Road. Enclosed to the road by a low rendered wall with bitmac front drive and forecourt having a single-storey rendered former gate lodge.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Replacement metal
Walling Painted ruled-and-lined render
Windows UPVC

Historical information

The present care home, formerly a dwelling house known as ‘Ratheane’, was built c1891 by Henry Hezlett Henry, and is first shown, captioned, on the third edition OS map of 1904.

The house and offices entered valuation records in 1891 as a newly-built vacant dwelling valued at £85 and constructed by Henry H Henry, who passed away before he was able to occupy his new residence. Henry Hezlett Henry was the son of Henry Henry of Grangemore and Esther Hezlett of Liffock, both well-known local families (Mullin). A plan is given of the buildings and the valuer notes that the cost was £3,000.

Following Henry H Henry’s death in 1891 the house was taken over by his widow and siblings, but all had passed away by the late 1890s and attempts were made to sell the house at auction in 1897, 1898 and 1899. An advertisement for the house carried in the Belfast Newsletter at the time, stated that it was ‘replete with every comfort and convenience’ and boasted ‘all the latest sanitary arrangements’. The accommodation comprised dining and drawing-rooms, a morning-room, library, mistresses’ and butlers’ pantries, lavatory, plate-room, seven bedrooms and dressing-room, bathroom, linen-closet, fern house, servants’ apartments and the house was supplied with hot and cold water throughout. The enclosed yard to the rear contained stabling for four horses, stalls for nine cows, harness and coachman’s rooms, and coach, coal, boiling, fowl, tool and wash houses connected to the house by a covered passage (Belfast Newsletter 26th July 1897). The house was said to command ‘a beautiful view of the surrounding picturesque scenery’ and had benefitted from the ‘very large sum of money’ which had been spent by Mr Henry on its construction (Belfast Newsletter 11th November 1898). The 1901 census records the occupier as John Boyd Greaves, who was resident in the 21-room, first class house with his sister and brother. Greaves was a general draper and employed two live-in servants, a cook and a housemaid.

The house was let to Rev Thomas Doey and Mrs Charlotte Doey in the 1920s but in 1924 it was bought by the Trustees of Coleraine Cottage Hospital and following alterations by architects William and Maxwell Given it was converted into Ratheane Hospital (Irish Times 29th November 1923), although the fifth edition OS map of 1949 shows little change to the plan form. Valuer’s notes of the 1930s record the internal accommodation which comprised a mixture of public wards of 3 to 5 beds and private single-occupancy rooms. The hospital also contained two operating rooms, and living quarters for nurses including seven bedrooms. The valuer described the building as ‘well-built and well-finished’ and the rooms as ‘lofty, well-lighted and airy’.

The hospital was taken over by the Northern Ireland Hospitals Authority in 1951 but following health service cuts, it was recommended for closure in 1976 (Irish Times 9th June 1976) and eventually closed in 1982. The building was taken over as a private nursing home in 1985 and has since been extended several times, most recently undergoing major refurbishment throughout and the addition of a new wing containing 11 bedrooms (www.housingcare.org).

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/5/7/3 Third Edition OS Map 1904
2. PRONI OS/6/5/7/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1923
3. PRONI OS/6/5/7/5 Fifth Edition OS Map 1949
4. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/9A-N Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
5. PRONI VAL/3/C/6/2 First General Revaluation 1933-57
6. PRONI VAL/3/D/6/3/P/4 First General Revaluation 1933-57
7. Belfast Newsletter 26th July 1897
8. Belfast Newsletter 11th November 1898
9. Belfast Newsletter 26th September 1899
10. Irish Times 9th June 1976
11. 1901 census online

Secondary Sources

1. Mullin, Rev T H “Coleraine in Modern Times” Belfast: Century Services Ltd, 1979
2. www.housingcare.org
3. www.dia.ie

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Detached asymmetrical gabled multi-bay two-storey rendered nursing home, built c.1890, with four-stage tower to the centre. Irregular on plan facing east and set within its own paved grounds on the west side of Mountsandel Road. Remodelled after a period of dereliction, this late nineteenth-century building has lost much of its original composition and detailing, and does not meet the criteria for listing.