Moyarget Lodge, 98 Moyarget Road, Ballycastle, Co Antrim BT54 6HL

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A detached symmetrical three-bay, two-storey with-attic house was built circa 1855, with two side-returns to the west. Both are two-storey and combine with a tall stone wall to enclose a side court. The house is sited on the south side of Moyarget Road, facing north onto a gravelled drive, with lawn gardens and mature trees to the fore, surrounded by fields, and a range of farm buildings, separated by a lane access to the west.
Roofs are slated and hipped throughout (excepting the gable dormer above the stair landing). Both the west and east hips of the main roof have a corbelled chimney stack at each apex with moulded band course, eight circular clay pots apiece, and a leaded flat top between them. The main roof has a pronounced eaves overhang with painted timber fascia, soffit, and dentils. The eaves of both side-returns are clipped, with a painted timber fascia and sit much lower than the main roof, springing from a level equivalent to the window-cill level of the first floor of the ‘main house’. Rainwater goods are cast-iron with half-round gutters and round-profile downpipes.
The exterior walls are sand/cement render, ruled and lined throughout. The ‘main house’ portion has a base plinth
.
Principal Elevation - NE
The principal section of the elevation sits proud of a side return and courtyard wall, allowing it to read as a symmetrical three-bay house - with three square-headed window openings on the first floor and two square-headed window openings on either side of a central entrance doorway on ground floor. A single step rises to a square-headed doorway - comprising a painted timber four-panel door with fielded panels, a central brass doorknob, and a single-pane transom window above. The entrance is flanked on either side by a fluted pilaster with a modest but refined stone canopy above.
To the NE, a blank side return continues as a courtyard wall, punctuated only by a single square-headed door opening with a solid timber door that provides access to an enclosed side court. To the NE, the elevation of a much larger side return addresses the court. On the ground floor, its three stone arches create a colonnade-like porch beyond which a rear wall has two window openings with timber sliding sash windows (a four-over-eight and a three-over-six). The collonaded porch provides open-air access to a rear entrance hall on the left and a corridor on the right, which are utilitarian outhouse rooms. At first floor, a single square-headed window opening has a six-over-six timber sliding sash window. A modern steel fire escape stair provides first-floor access to a flat-roofed, timber-clad box porch supported on two square profile steel columns. The elevated porch has a single six-pane window (NE facing) and a square-headed entrance doorway to the side – solid panel upvc door (NW).

Side Elevation - SE
The SE elevation has two symmetrically arranged square-headed window openings, with six-over-six timber sliding sash windows on the ground floor and two more on the first floor.

Rear Elevation - SW
To the SW, the taller-roofed part of the elevation is symmetrically arranged with three square-headed window openings on the ground floor and matching three on the first floor, all with six-over-six timber sliding sash windows. The lower-roofed side return has five square-headed window openings aligned above four smaller square-headed window openings and a square-headed door opening. All the windows are six-over-six timber sliding sash, and the glazed upvc door has twelve glass panes above a solid panel.

Side Elevation - NW
The NW elevation presents a blank gable of the larger NW return onto the farm access lane, this extends as a tall wall enclosing a side court, also blank save a doorway onto the lane. Inside the court, the NW elevation of the ‘main dwelling’ is an asymmetrical arrangement of window openings of different size and proportion. At roof level, the elevation extends into a flush gabled dormer containing an arch-headed window opening with a six-over-six timber sliding sash window. On the first floor, a much larger six-over-six timber sliding sash window sits beneath the dormer, with a smaller six-over-six timber sliding sash window to the left. On the ground floor, a three-over-six timber sliding sash window aligns beneath the stair-landing and dormer windows. To the left, a three-over-six timber sliding sash window sits close by a one-over-one timber sliding sash window.

Materials
Roof Natural slate & lead
RWG Cast-iron
Walling Cement render, ashlar stone scribed
Windows Timber sliding sash

Historical information

On the OS map of 1832 a group of three buildings are shown roughly on the site of the present farm complex. It is difficult to say whether any of these corresponds to any of the structures we see today, but one appears to match the positioning of part the outbuilding that now stands to the south/south-east corner of the farmyard. Unfortunately, it is difficult to trace this property within the first valuation book of October 1834; however, it may be that recorded as occupied by a Mrs. Hopkins, comprising a slated house measuring 30½ft x 20 x 11, and a thatched outbuilding and barn of 35 x 17½ x 6 and 14 x 17½ x 5 respectively.

The name ‘Moygaret Lodge’ begins to be referred to in newspaper notices from early 1840 onwards, by which date the property had been acquired by John Stewart-Moore (c.1806-77). He is referred to as ‘of Moyarget’ in January 1838, so must therefore have moved here in c.1835-38 and given the subsequent application of a (gentrified) name to the holding, set about its enhancement. This is borne out by the revised OS map of 1855 which shows a much more extensive collection of buildings laid out along the regular lines of the current farmyard. At this point the old pre-1834 dwelling was still occupied, but between 1855 and 1859 the present house was built on previously undeveloped ground just east of the yard. The new residence is recorded in the second valuation of 1859 as amounting to 15yds x 13 x 2[storeys] with returns to the west side of 10 x 6 x 2, 3 x 4 x 2 and 3 x 3 x 3, with the accompany outbuildings measuring 22 x 5 x 1, 8 x 3 x 1, 16 x 3 x 1, 10 x 7 x 1, 47 x 8 x 1, 50 x 6 x 2 16 x 4 x 1 and 22 x 6 x 1. The property also possessed a gate lodge at the head main drive of what is now Moyarget Road, whilst the old house is also recorded, the dimensions of its main section (10 x 7 x 1½) approximating to those noted in the 1834 valuation, although by this time an extension of 7 x 4 x 1 had been added to the north end and an outhouse projection of 5 x 3 x 1 to the rear.

After John Stewart-Moore’s death in 1877 the house passed to his wife, Elizabeth. In the 1901 census the 73yr-old Mrs. Stewart-Moore is noted as living here with her unmarried youngest, daughter – also Elizabeth, two domestic servants and (at that particular date) four house guests. By 1911 mother and daughter had been joined by the former’s grandson, Francis Cuppage Gage, with three domestic servants also recorded, with the house itself described as a ‘1st class’ dwelling with 15 rooms in use by the family. Mrs Stewart-Moore died later in 1911 and her daughter in 1932. Moyarget Lodge later passed to a relative, James Stewart-Moore, with whose descendant it remains.

The house appears to have changed relatively little - at least in terms of its footprint - since construction. The 1904 OS map does indicate that at some point after 1859 some additions were made to the north side of the return, with the plan as today shown on the 1922 map. That said, the valuations record no major alterations to the building during the later 19th or early 20th century.

References – primary sources
1 OS map County Series, Antrim sheet 8 – 1832, 1855, 1904, 1922; IG sheet 8-14 – 1972
2 PRONI VAL1B/135 First valuation, Ramoan Parish – 1835
3 ‘Freeman’s Journal’ – 29 January 1838, p.4
5 ‘Northern Whig’ – 9 January 1840, p.2
6 PRONI VAL2B/1/28B Second valuation, Ramoan parish – 1859
7 PRONI VAL12B/2/17A-E Annual valuation revision books, Ramoan ED – 1864-1929
8 ‘Belfast News-Letter’ – 17 April 1877, p.1; 11 February 1911, p.6; 31 December 1962, p.2
9 Census of Ireland – 1901, 1911 (online https://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/) [Accessed 8 February 2024]
10 ‘Ballymoney Free Press and Northern Counties Advertiser’ – 31 March 1932, p.2; 20 September 1934, p.2

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Moyarget Lodge is well-preserved gentleman farmer’s residence. A two-storey with-attic house built circa 1855, its design is restrained and attractive. Of note is the contrast between the taller main-roofed portion of the house, which reads as a symmetrical villa and the lower-roofed combination of asymmetrical side returns and walled court which reads as subservient. The overall effect of the composition is enhanced by the lofty mature setting complete with lawns and curving tree-lined approach and the clear delineation from the working farm to the west by the separating lane access, reinforced by the court wall, blank side return gable and hedgerow.
The building is largely intact both inside and out and retains finely-worked internal detailing.
Many of the accompanying rubble-built farm outbuildings are also well-preserved; the earlier structures are of interest as most of them predate the house itself and are quite probably – in part at least - of early 18th century construction.