Mulnavar Lodge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached three-bay two-storey gabled stone house, built c.1870. L-plan facing east, located to the north of Drumlegagh Church Road. Set on an elevated site, accessed by a long drive to southeast with a two-storey outhouse forming an enclosed rear yard and a larger range of outbuildings arranged around a yard to the west.

Roofs are pitched natural slate with catslide over rear pitch to the half-landing level only. Stone ridge tiles and three stone ashlar chimneystacks with decorative octagonal clay pots and lead flashing. Carved stone fractibles to all gables with a chamfered moulding below and continued to entire eaves, supporting ogee-moulded cast-iron guttering, octagonal hoppers and cast-iron downpipes.

Walls are of squared uncoursed stone, ashlar quoins and a chamfered ashlar plinth course.

Window openings are square-headed formed in landscape format flush stone ashlar divided into three or four lights with stone mullions. Replacement timber double-glazed casement windows throughout.

Front elevation faces east with an advanced single-bay two-storey gable to the left having a rectangular-plan three-sided bay window to ground floor and a stone canopy to the principal entrance occupying the inner angle on the right. The bay window has a three-sided stone ashlar window frame of four vertical lights to the front with stone mullions and one to each cheek. Set on a continuous sill course with a carved cornice above and blocking course. Square-headed door opening formed in flush tooled and chamfered in-and-out work with a pair of s-curved stone brackets supporting a single stone canopy. Timber panelled door (upper panels glazed) onto front paved area.

South side elevation has a symmetrical arrangement of two windows to both floors with a gablet to each bay rising through the eaves. Windows as per above with three lights to the first floor openings, four to the ground floor.

West rear elevation has a blank two-storey gable to the right with the half-landing window opening below eaves to the centre and a square-headed door opening to the left flanked by smaller window openings to either side. Replacement timber casement windows and a replacement hardwood glazed door.

North side elevation comprises a full catslide gabled elevation with a single window opening to both floors (tripartite) and an advanced chimneystack to the rear end of the house with offsets and a small window opening to the rear eaves.

Setting

Multi-bay two-storey stone former coach-house set parallel to the rear of the house contains a segmental-headed carriage-arch opening giving access to an enclosed internal yard, enclosed to either side by a tall rubble-stone wall. All detailing as per main house, except original bipartite timber casement windows (timber mullions). To interior of the yard is a further carriage opening with a timber lintel and replacement timber doors with a recess in the walls to either side to accommodate previous doors.
Set within a rural farm
setting access from the front by a long gravel avenue to the southeast. The west elevation of the rear coach-house forms one side of a large farmyard comprising single and two-storey white-washed rubble-stone outbuildings, with pitched natural slate and corrugated iron roofs.

Roof Natural slate
Walls Stone
Windows Replacement timber
Rainwater goods Cast-iron

Historical information

Although, stylistically, the building appears later, a building of similar footprint appears on the second edition OS map of 1854, and is captioned ‘Mulnavar Lodge’. The mullioned windows and gabled elevations suggest a date of about twenty years later. The 1833 map shows a previous cross shaped building on the site, captioned ‘Clover Hill’. Griffith’s Valuation of 1858 records the property as a ‘steward’s house, offices and land’. The occupier is listed as Sir James M. Stronge, and he holds the property in fee. The building valuation is £37. It must be noted that the National School located at the foot of the entrance avenue also appears on the second edition map, although it bears a datestone inscription of 1872. Internal fittings also suggest a later date for the house, and it seems likely that it was rebuilt on the same site. No evidence has been found to support this.

The current owner stated that the house was built by Col. Sir James Stronge, 3rd Baronet of Tynan (fl.1811-1885), born at Tynan Abbey, Co. Armagh. Col. Stronge was Deputy Lieutenant and High Sherriff of County Cavan, and MP for Armagh (1864-74). Along with Tynan, Mulnavar is listed as one of his residences in the 1880 Belfast and Ulster Street Directory.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/6/24/1 -First Edition OS Map (1833)
2. PRONI OS/6/6/24/2 -Second Edition OS Map (1854)
3. PRONI OS/6/6/24/3 -Third Edition OS Map (1905-6)
4. PRONI VAL/1/B/635A-B -Townland Valuation
5. PRONI VAL/2/B/6/37/B -Griffith’s Valuation (1858)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/35/4/A-E -Valuation Revisions (1860-1915)

Secondary Sources

1. Belfast and Ulster Street Directory, 1880 (accessed online at www.lennonwylie.co.uk/PDAC1880.htm, 5 March 2009)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Detached three-bay two-storey gabled stone house, built c.1870. An unusual mid nineteenth-century lodge occupying a prominent rural site. This is a substantial building expressing its original function as the steward's house and retaining its original character and detailing; the style is unusual in this area. Its direct historical associations with the Stronge estate are also of interest. The name Mulnavar is also associated with the National School (now converted) built beside the road adjacent to entrance to the house and dated 1870.