Dervaghroy House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached three-bay two-storey rendered house, built c.1890, facing east and set within its own grounds on the west side of Church Road. Rectangular on plan with front entrance porch, two-storey rear return and an extensive range of two-storey stone outbuildings arranged around a yard to the north side of the house.

Pie-ended lead roof on hipped natural slate roof with roll-moulded terracotta ridge tiles and two yellow brick chimneystacks. Ogee-moulded cast-iron rainwater goods on paired stone corbels. Ruled-and-lined cement rendered walling with projecting plinth course and rusticated rendered quoins. Window openings are square-headed to ground floor and segmental-headed to first floor with moulded architrave surrounds, stone sills and 2/2 timber sash windows with ogee horns and some cylinder glass.

Symmetrical three-bay two-storey principal elevation with central entrance porch. Rectangular plan entrance porch has flat roof behind rendered parapet and moulded cornice below. Cast-iron hopper and downpipe with rusticated soldier quoins and projecting plinth course. Square-headed window opening to both cheeks (as per front elevation) with single-pane timber sash windows. Square-headed door opening with original four-panelled timber door and rectangular overlight flanked by pair of moulded cement pilasters having egg-and-dart moulding to plinth blocks, moulded capitals and architrave surround above with square rosette panels to the corners. Door opens onto concrete platform and step to front bitmac area.

Two-bay two-storey south side elevation detailed as per front elevation with pair of iron skylights to the roof and opening onto bitmac rear access.

Three-bay two-storey rear elevation with off-centre gable-ended two-storey return. All square-headed window openings with 2/2 timber sash windows except that to centre first floor window, lighting stair hall, having single-pane timber sash window with coloured glass margin lights, and some timber casement windows.

Two-bay two-storey north side elevation is abutted by a single-storey wing with pitched natural slate roof attached to south range of yard, and extends to the rear as a self-contained single-storey dwelling, built c.2000.

Setting

A short bitmac drive opens onto the road to the southeast through a pair of cast-iron gates on octagonal cast-iron posts. Further north is a separate entrance to the former farm yard through two pairs of tall rendered piers. The single-storey and two-storey outbuildings have pitched natural slate roofs, rubble stone walling with cut stone quoins, red brick window and door surrounds and vertically-sheeted timber doors. The south range forms an open shelter to the kitchen door to the single-storey north wing. The two-storey west range has a flight of stone steps and a primitive date stone. Further pair of rubble stone outbuildings to the north and a substantial two-storey multi-bay range to the east enclosing the yard to the road.

Roof Natural slate / lead
Walling cement render
Windows Timber
Rainwater goods Cast-iron

Historical information

Buildings are shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833. Some of these appear to have survived as part of the current outbuildings. Further buildings are shown on the site on the second edition (1854) but it is not until the third edition that the present house appears, captioned ‘Dervaghroy House’.

In Annual Revision records dating from 1860 James Rollestone leases the property from the Earl of Belmore. It is a house, offices and land valued at £3.10s. In 1877, this valuation is increased to £5, perhaps indicating the addition of outbuildings. However, in 1894 a ‘new slated house’ has been built on the plot, measuring 43½x31x24 with a return of 15x15x11. The new building is valued at £8 and as ‘all old buildings remain’, this is added to the previous valuation of £5, making a total of £13.

John Rollestone becomes the owner in fee in 1907 under the land purchase Acts of the early twentieth century. In 1913 John D. Watson becomes the owner. He is a noted pig breeder, his Ulster white, named ‘Dervaghroy Star of Peace, farrowed August 16th 1918’ appearing in a herd book of 1920.

In 1934 the valuation of the house is raised to £16 and £4.10 for outbuildings. It comprises a p[orch?], d[ining room?], kitchen, scullery, p[antry?] and on the first floor five bedrooms and a bath and W.C. The buildings are all of rubble masonry, mostly slated, but some outbuildings are roofed with corrugated iron. A plan and dimensions are given, and a dairy is shown adjoining the house to the rear.

References:

Primary Sources

PRONI OS/6/6/43/1 – First Edition OS Map (1833)
PRONI OS/6/6/43/2 – Second Edition OS Map (1854)
PRONI OS/6/6/43/3 – Third Edition OS Map (1906)
PRONI OS/6/6/43/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map (1936-8)
PRONI VAL/1/A/6/43 – Townland Valuation Map
PRONI VAL/1/B/627 – Townland Valuation (1828-40)
PRONI VAL/2/A/6/43 – Griffiths’ Valuation Map
PRONI VAL/2/B/6/29 – Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
PRONI VAL/12/B/41/39A-F – Annual Revision Records (1860-1929)
Day, A. and P. McWilliams, eds. “OS Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of County Tyrone II, 1825, 1833-5, 1840, Vol. 20.” Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1990.

Secondary Sources

Royal Ulster Agricultural Society, “Herd Book of Large White Ulster Pigs”, 1920

The owner stated that the outbuildings pre-date the house when this was the site of the functioning farm buildings of an earlier house situated on the opposite side of the road.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This late Victorian house of c. 1890 replaced an earlier dwelling on the opposite side of the road. The somewhat suburban style of the house contrasts with the vernacular style of the earlier outbuildings to the north, forming a group of some interest. However, the house is a common type of a late date and not one of the best examples of the type.