Sharvagh House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two storey rendered late Victorian house, outbuildings, walling and gates set back from the main building line in Main street near the centre of Bushmills. It is situated in an extensive mainly grassed site. The main house sits at right angles to Main Street and is almost square in plan with a narrow rear return at forty five degrees. Immediately to the South are two outhouses, one single storey and the other two storey, that served as a wash house and may also have been servant’s accommodation. To the South-East are various stone walled agricultural outbuildings.

The house is approached via a short driveway through a pair of cast iron gates supported on square gate piers of squared Basalt blocks with sandstone pyramidal caps. The boundary wall to Main Street is a 1.5m high random rubble basalt wall that curves inwards to the gate piers.

The front elevation faces West and has a central doorway with a simple projecting smooth rendered surround. The door is four panelled with the top panels raised and fielded and the bottom ones flush. There are plain glazed half lights and overlight. To either side of the doorway are shallow projecting square window bays that match the door surround, each with paired 1/1 timber sliding sash windows. The first floor has three 1/1 timber siding sash windows with shallow segmental heads and simple moulded architraves. The walls are dry dash rendered with projecting painted sandstone quoins.

The South elevation is also dry dash rendered with two 6/6 timber siding sash windows to the first floor and one similar on the ground floor and another one a paired 4/4 window. All have a narrow smooth plaster band surround. The dog leg return is also 2-storey and steps down from the main block and has a gable end. Eaves are flush. There is one 8/8 timber sliding sash window on the ground floor and a single 1/1 on the first.

The North elevation is stepped on plan. The front section is rendered as the front elevation and has no openings. The rear section is smooth rendered with a small basement level window and sliding sash window to the first floor.

The East elevation comprises mainly one of the gabled arms of the front block. It is smooth rendered and has four irregularly placed windows. There is a 1/1 timber sliding sash window to the first floor and similar paired 2/2 to the ground floor and two 9 paned square basement windows. Between the two arms of the U the dog-legged return meets the main block in an awkward junction particularly at roof level. The return elevation facing North East has five variously proportioned small paned windows all original. The gable of the return is smooth rendered and has double 12 paned windows at first floor level over a small partially rendered and partially corrugated iron clad extension which has a corrugated iron roof.

The roof of the main block is u-shaped with an internal gutter, hipped on three sides with natural slates and bracketed eaves. There are two centrally positioned rendered chimney stacks with simple projecting cornices and clay chimney pots.

Outbuildings to the South.
These lie on the southern boundary to the South of the main house. The block nearest main Street is two storey, rectangular and gabled with a central doorway that has a modern steel roller shutter door. There are 2/2 timber sliding sash windows at either side. Above each window is a similar window half set into the roof slope with a gablet and slated roof. The main roof is covered in corrugated iron and the walls are mostly wet dash render, with the underlying stonework exposed at the gable junction with the attached single storey block. The single storey block is also rectangular with a central timber sheeted door in a slightly projecting slated porch. Either side are 6/6 timber windows as before.

Setting
The house sits back from Main street with a mature garden to either side of the drive. At the rear, the main part of the site is a rough grassed area with some mature trees and an area to the North West boundary where a large greenhouse once stood. Closer to the house is a more formal garden also grassed. To the South East is a smaller courtyard of now dilapidated agricultural buildings. One of these is a stone walled but now roofless former mill for preparing animal feed. Adjacent to this is a row of pig crews, also roofless but with arched entrances having fine dressed stone voissoirs and stone enclosure walls. Closer to the house is a further stone walled outbuilding with slated roof.

Historical information

The plot on which this house now stands is shown as a large garden on the OS map of 1857 and the valuation plan of 1858. The garden belonged to the building to the immediate south, a house with extensive outbuildings then in the hands of an Elizabeth D. Anderson, with John Anderson the lessor. In 1873-74 one Hugh Lecky acquired the whole property, leasing the existing house to a Daniel McIlroy and some of its outbuildings and the garden to the north to a Dr. James Macaw.

By 1876 Macaw had begun to develop this land, erecting the present building, a two-storey dwelling with dispensary recorded in that year as measuring 12yrds x 12½. An additional measurement of 1yrd 2ft x 6 is also supplied by the valuer, which appears to refer to the dimensions of the ‘recess’ to the north-east corner of the footprint. The dimensions of the return set at an angle to the rear are not given, and we may assume that it had not been completed by that stage, for the house itself was only habitable (and hence rateable) in 1878.

James Macaw died c.1889-90 and the property was acquired by the Bushmills Old Distillery Company and leased to an A.H. Steen. Mr Steen, (who appears to have been responsible for naming the property ‘Sharvagh House’), died c.1905-06 and the house passed to [?his daughter] Miss Maud Steen, who also acquired the freehold. In 1929 the house came into the possession of a Matthew Dysart, passing to a Robert E. Eakin the following year, but (somewhat oddly) back in the hands of Mr. Dysart by 1941. The present owner’s family acquired Sharvagh House in 1947.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI OS/6/1/7/2 OS map County Antrim sheet 7, 1857
2 PRONI VAL/2A/1/7 Valuation plan of Bushmills, 1858 (with annotations to c.1890s)
3 PRONI VAL/2B/1/25A Second valuation, Billy parish, 1858
4 PRONI VAL/12B/30/8A Annual valuation revision book, Bushmills ED, 1859-63
5 PRONI VAL/12B/30/8B Annual valuation revision book, Bushmills ED, 1864-78
6 PRONI VAL/12B/30/8C Annual valuation revision book, Bushmills ED, 1879-87
7 PRONI VAL/12E/17/1 Valuation plan of Bushmills, 1883(-93)
8 PRONI VAL/12B/30/8D Annual valuation revision book, Bushmills ED, 1887-94
9 PRONI VAL/12B/4/6A Annual valuation revision book, Bushmills ED, 1895-1909
10 PRONI VAL/12E/17/2/1-2 Valuation plan of Bushmills, 1898(-1908)
11 PRONI VAL/12B/4/6B Annual valuation revision book, Bushmills ED, 1910-20
12 PRONI VAL/12B/4/6A Annual valuation revision book, Bushmills ED, 1921-1929
13 PRONI VAL/3C/1/13 First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland, 1936-57

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This little changed mid-Victorian house is well proportioned and detailed both externally and internally. It sits behind a stone wall with good quality cast iron gates within a mature site. The main building is enhanced by the adjacent outbuildings that are similarly detailed. The house has social importance being designed as a doctor's surgery and dispensary.