Pump House,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A small rubble blackstone building of square plan with dressed quoins and moulded cornice. There is a blank mullioned and transomed sandstone window surmounted by a square label moulding of Tudor Revival type in the east wall, to the front, and a sheeted door in a block surround to the south side. There are stone parapets to the roofline, currently with a steel beam resting on top; parapet now finished roughly flat, not original in appearance but the result of original crenellations now missing. The building stands alongside a small river, known as the River Foaran, and has at its base a small semi-circular arched outlet into the river, and a piped connection at the rear facing the cliff from where the river flows. A crack in the front wall runs through the window head which is badly fractured; thus the iron tie bar which binds the sides of the building high up.

SETTING: The building stands in a field alongside and clearly visible from the coast road and is seen against a steeply rising and rocky mountainous background; beyond the road to the east is the sea. A stream flows alongside it. A circular concrete pipe which enters the west wall above ground level of the building connects back to a system of concrete walled receptacles which collect and direct the water issuing from below the mountain to the west, but although end of pipe open it does not carry any volume of water. Water diverted to a modern post-2nd World War single-storey pumping station standing to south of stream uphill from the 19th century pump house and seen in close juxtaposition with it when viewed from main road. Modern pumping station flat-roofed, of asphalt, with dry dash render to walls, using white limestone chippings, two rectangular flush wooden doors and rectangular metal-framed windows: utilitarian in appearance and of no architectural merit. Derelict wire mesh and concrete post boundary fencing around modern pumping station.

Historical information

Built in 1854 as a pump house to provide a water supply to Garron Tower, originally a residence of the Londonderry family but now St MacNissi’s College; it later also pumped water up to a concrete reservoir built in 1863 on top of Dunmaul fort so as to provide pressure for Garron Tower’s fire-fighting water supply. Originally operated by direct drive but converted to electrically powered chain drive in the 1960s; more recently superseded by a new pump house erected by the D.O.E. a short distance up-stream, to the west, thus making the old pump house redundant. The original supply stream, the River Foaran, is reputedly the shortest river in Ireland. Architect not recorded but it could have been Lewis Vulliamy of London (1791-1871) who designed enlargements for Garron Tower residence in 1852.

References - Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 20 (labelled ‘Water Engine’).
2. OS Map 1903, Co Antrim 20 (labelled ‘Engine House’).

Secondary Sources
1. UAHS, Glens of Antrim (Belfast, 1971), p 25.
2. M. McSparran, C. Dallat, and J. Irvine, Oh Maybe it was Yesterday (Glens of Antrim Historical Society, 1980), plate 23 (shows the building in its original form with crenellations).
3. F. Hamond, Antrim Coast & Glens: Industrial Heritage (HMSO, Belfast, 1991), pp 51 and 86 (item no. 47).
4. IHR 6532.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is a mid-19th century building in a plain style, of interest as part of an important local estate, but it has lost some of its original features, including its crenellations, is in partially derelict condition, and has had its immediate setting spoiled by the building of a modern pumping station adjacent to it.