Gate Screen

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

This is the current main entrance to the demesne, leading off the Mountjoy Road. The gatescreen comprises a central double gateway with fine wrought iron gates supported on ashlar sandstone pillars and flanked by curving dwarf walls terminating in columns and surmounted by matching railings.

The pillars are square and set on moulded plinths; the shaft has rectangular recessed panels divided from smaller panels above by a moulded string course. The cap has a moulded cornice and curves up to a point. The gates are framed in two stages with a lower, short section where the uprights alternate with quatrefoils topped by spear-tips and an upper section where the uprights continue and the spear points top the gate. The railings are spear-tipped with panels of four held between strapping and supported by every fifth upright.

Setting

This entrance to the demesne is off Mountjoy Road to the North of Stuart Hall and leads via a relatively short drive to the long circular drive that sweeps around the West of the walled garden; this short drive continues to the modern bungalow. From its scale it appears to have been secondary to the more grand entrance (HB09/11/013F) off the Castlefarm Road to the west that links to the circular drive and which must have originally been the main entrance but which is now kept locked. The demesne is well-wooded and some of the original landscape features survive.

Historical information

Stewart Hall (or Stuart Hall), the country house these former outbuildings once served was built c.1760 by Andrew Thomas Stewart (Viscount Castle Stewart from 1793, Earl Castle Stewart after 1800). Beginning as a typically uncomplicated rectangular Georgian block, the building was extended in 1860 by means of the addition of a somewhat ill-conceived Baronial tower to the south-east, with a castellated parapet applied to the original section in an effort to lend the whole unity. The property badly damaged by a bomb in 1974, and demolished in the 1980s and replaced by the present bungalow.

The outbuildings themselves appear to be largely contemporary with the house, the distinctive quarter circle plan form shown on the OS map of 1833-34, and the first valuation of 1835 grading most of the complex as ‘old’ at that date. Their dimensions are recorded in the same valuation as, 87ft x 17½ x 11, 44 x 21 x 16, 80 x 17 x 11, 40½ x 23 x 17½, 61 x 18 x 10, 69 x 17½ x 10, 56½ x 21½ x 16, (deduct archway 9 x 22½ x 10), 58 x 21½ x 16½, 54 x 11 x 6 (a ‘newer’ structure), 27 x 9½ x 8 (also more recent), 41 x 14½ x 7, 88 x 20 x 9, 56½ x 13 x 7, 31½ x 13½ x 7, 56 x 21 x 13, 35 x 20 x 9, 44 x 13½ x 7 (‘houses outside garden [?offices]’), 33 x 13½ x 10, 44 x 13½ x 7, with the house itself measuring 90 x 55 x 30, with 8ft high cellars.

The date of the, highly unusual, private Presbyterian meeting house or ‘chapel’ contained within the complex is uncertain. It is not marked on the OS maps of 1833-34 or 1853-57, but noted for the first time on the OS map of 1906, and only mentioned by the valuers in 1923 (‘chapel and farm offices’); however the valuers were never interested in religious buildings as a rule, as these were exempt from rating. Thus, going on this evidence, it appears to have brought into being at some point in the later 1800s, and is therefore the work of the 4th or 5th Earls of Castle Stewart.

The walled garden is shown on the OS map of 1833-34, and includes a date stone of 1832. The decorative folly towers are shown on the OS map of 1853 and are much in keeping with the later baronial additions and embellishments to the house, made by the 4th Earl of Castle Stewart in 1860.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D/1618 Castle Stewart Papers, 1587-c.1960
1 PRONI VAL/1A/6/47 OS map, Co. Tyrone sheet 47 with valuation
references, 1833-34(-35)
2 ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland…vol.20’ eds. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams, (QUB, 1990), p.15 (1834)
3 PRONI VAL/1B/621A-B First valuation, Ballyclog parish, 1835
4 PRONI VAL/2A/6/47B OS map, Co Tyrone, sheet 47- with valuation references, 1853-57
5 PRONI VAL/2B/6/25C Second valuation, Ballyclog parish, 1857
4 PRONI VAL/12B/37/1A Annual valuation revision book, Ballyclog ED, 1860-63
6 PRONI VAL/12B/37/1B Annual valuation revision book, Ballyclog ED, 1864-80
7 PRONI VAL/12B/37/1C Annual valuation revision book, Ballyclog ED, 1881
8 PRONI VAL/12B/37/1D Annual valuation revision book, Ballyclog ED, 1882-96
9 PRONI VAL/12B/37/1E Annual valuation revision book, Ballyclog ED, 1897-1911
10 PRONI OS/6/3/47/3 OS map, Co. Tyrone sheet 47, 1906
11 PRONI VAL/12B/37/1F Annual valuation revision book, Ballyclog ED, 1912-29
12 VAL/3C/7/5 First general revaluation of Northern Ireland, Ballyclog ED, 1936-57

Secondary sources
1 Rowan, A.J., ‘North west Ulster’, (London, 1979), p.489
2 EHS Garden file relating to Castle Stewart

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
V. Authorship

Evaluation

A refined gatescreen comprising fine wrought iron gates supported on ashlar sandstone pillars and flanked by curving railing screens.
Along with the courtyard and entrances, they form an important surviving portion of a significant house and estate; the group is somewhat eclectic in character and is a noteworthy collection of estate structures.

General comments

HB09/11/013 has been split into its constituent parts, not all of which are listed.