Farm buildings at Derrymore House Derrymore Co. Armagh BT35 7EF

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Located within the Derrymore and Woodhouse Demesne, the service yard of Derrymore House includes a central core of two storey buildings that pre-date the 1834-5 OS map, together with buildings that were added between 1861 and 1895. The service yard is a small collection of outbuildings arranged around three sides of two courts with the remaining eastern side of each court enclosed by a rubble wall with gateway. The complex is screened from Derrymore House with judicious planting of belts of mature trees.

For the purposes of clarity, building designations are based on the Valuation plan from 1930 (on database).

Principal elevation of the early, central barn (e/g) comprises natural slate pitched roof with cast iron guttering fixed to raised plaster eaves line sitting proud of random rubble stone wall with remnants of lime plaster still in evidence. Centrally located first floor barn door opening with painted timber frame in situ located above two shallow dressed stone arched openings at ground level. Projecting gable to left, with flush verge having return elevation with empty window opening, complete with stone cill at upper level below which former arched opening with dressed stone profile, infilled with rubble stone and containing painted, wood sheeted door to left and one over two nine pane painted sliding sash timber window. Walls random rubble stone with evidence of lime plaster. Attached to gable and projecting to Northeast single storey pitched corrugated shed (f), with roughcast render and top hung wood framed windows. Positioned directly opposite and abutting front right-hand side of barn, projecting single storey natural slate, (h), with pitched roof and flush verge, exposed rubble stone walls and having two centrally positioned vertically clad painted timber doors and frames with blank window apertures to sides with perspex infill panel. Perpendicular to gable, rubble stone wall with square piers and wrought iron gates enclose and define courtyard. Rear elevation blank rubble stone walls now overgrown with shrubbery and undergrowth.

Southerly orientated courtyard defined by mono pitched roof shed now with corrugated sheeting, (d), perpendicular to rear of original barn building. Open fronted with mid span support of cast iron column with simple roof truss arrangement, the shed spans the width of the courtyard enclosure. To the left and perpendicular to the open shed, single storey barrel roof with corrugated tin sheeting (b). Rubble stone wall with two sets of double, vertical sheeted, painted wooden doors flanked by single doors either side. All door surrounds dressed with rustic brick quoins. To left, aluminium clad sliding door giving access to double size garage (a). Flush end double gable barrel vault with rough cast render and projecting to right, rubble stone wall with square piers and wrought iron gates which define and enclose courtyard. Directly opposite the rear of the original barn €, with roof and wall finish as described before with two empty window openings, complete with stone cills at upper level below, on RHS, former arched opening with dressed stone profile, infilled with rubble stone and empty window opening. LHS, at ground level has frameless door opening. Upper LHS window aperture with mini lead clad dormer gable above with remnants of projecting lifting beam. Rear of building (a) with brick quoins to window surrounds and LHS outer corner. Window opening to left with concrete head, 2no. Six panes, side hung painted timber frames, with former opening to left blank and infilled with exposed concrete block. South facing return has one opening with 2no. Six panes, side hung painted timber frames. Rear of block (b) with 3no. Six pane side hung painted timber framed windows with brick surrounds as described above. Walls rubble stone.

Setting:
An integral part of the small late-Georgian, part-walled landscape park enclosing Derrymore House and The Woodhouse laid out by the celebrated landscape gardener John Sutherland. Occupying a secluded site and surrounded by mature trees and shrubbery, the approach to the complex from the northeast offers vistas across the open lawns bounded by perimeter planting and arrival at the complex through the designed woodlands. The gated access to the courtyards helps define the formal enclosure of the building complex.

Roofing: Natural slate, corrugated sheeting
Walling: Exposed rubble stone, roughcast render.
Windows: Timber
RWG: metal

Historical information

The current outbuildings/farmyard to Derrymore House comprises buildings that pre-date the 1834-5 OS map, together with further structures that were added between 1861 and 1895. The roof structure of a motor house with Belfast trusses likely dates from the early 20th century.
Derrymore House was built in the cottage orné style c1777 (the exact date is uncertain, but the house was extant by 1780 - Jupp) for Isaac Corry, then a newly-elected MP for Newry Borough who later became Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer (1799-1804). Corry was in the post at the time of the Act of Union of 1800, which is said to have been drafted within the Treaty Room. The landscape designer John Sutherland (1745-1826) laid out the demesne c1780 and Kevin Mulligan suggests he may also have been the designer of the house itself. The demesne is one of Sutherland’s earliest known works and is typical of his naturalistic style. Belinda Jupp suggests that Sutherland’s designs must have taken account of practical considerations such as access to outbuildings and it is likely that the placement of the outbuildings, as well as the house itself, formed part of Sutherland’s design.

Isaac Corry advertised the house for sale in 1807, offering with the house ‘stalls for 13 horses and standing for 4 carriages’, which suggests that substantial outbuildings already existed at this point. Corry eventually sold the house in 1810 to Lieutenant-Colonel (later Sir) William Young of the East India Company who had constructed an impressive classical entrance hall at the north end of Derrymore House by 1815 (since demolished). When advertising the house for sale in 1815, Young was said to have ‘spared no expense in rendering the house and offices commodious and the lands productive’. The earliest outbuildings within the yard (outbuildings e and g) may date from the original construction of Derrymore with improvements/additions to the farmyard possibly made by Young in the 1810s. Young was unable to sell the house for some years, and it was finally purchased in 1828 by Newry merchant Edward Smyth.

Outbuildings e and g are shown on the first edition OS map of 1834-5, together with additional outbuildings that have not survived.
At the time of the Townland Valuation (1836) the occupier of Derrymore House was Isaac Smyth, and the house was valued with the outbuildings to the estate. Two of these outbuildings are listed in the valuation book as having two storeys and these correspond roughly to the dimensions of present-day outbuildings e and g. One of these is identified as a ‘barn’ and this most likely refers to building g.
Griffith’s Valuation (1862) lists the occupiers of Derrymore House as George Bell and Alex Pringle (the house being let out in two halves). The house was leased from John G Richardson, proprietor of Bessbrook Mills, who acquired the demesne in 1859 from the Smyth family. Richardson and his family did not occupy the house, having their own residence, The Woodhouse, within the demesne to the N, built c1860 and Derrymore House was let out until it was given over to the National Trust in 1952.

The outbuildings are listed in Griffith’s Valuation with the South gate lodge, and were leased by J G Richardson from Robert Glenny, the tenant of Derrymore Mill (itself leased from the Kilmorey Estate), to the NE of the demesne. They comprised three, two-storey structures, the dimensions of two of which again approximate to outbuildings e and g. The third two-storey structure is listed as ‘down’ indicating that it was a ruin or had been demolished. Two further buildings, shown to the NE of the farmyard on the 2nd edition OS map of 1861, but which have not survived, are listed as dwellings, most likely for estate workers – a sale advertisement of 1858, indicates that the demesne offered ‘four houses for workmen’.

Between the 2nd edition of 1861 and the large-scale OS map of 1895, the farmyard was expanded, presumably by the occupier of the demesne, John Grubb Richardson, or the Richardson family after J.G.’s death in 1890, with the addition of buildings: a, b, c, d, h and a water tank (labelled i). Building f may also have been rebuilt. Additionally, the old workers’ accommodation was demolished and new workers’ cottages constructed to the N of the farmyard (still extant but heavily remodelled). These changes can be partially tracked in valuation records. The valuation of the outbuildings was raised by £1 in 1870 due to the addition of ‘new off[ice]s’, and a further rise in valuation by £5 in 1881 may refer to additions to the outbuildings. A one-storey house valued at £2.15s was added to the site in 1883, most likely as an addition to the row of workers’ dwellings to the N, and this row may therefore have originally been constructed between 1861 and 1883.

The row of workers housing to the N of the farmyard comprised at least two dwellings and valuation maps suggest that there was another worker’s dwelling within the farmyard itself. One of the workers housed could be identified as William McKelvey, coachman, who appears in both the 1901 and 1911 census. McKelvey was from County Cavan and in 1901 lived with his wife and daughter in accommodation with four rooms and five windows to the front elevation, most likely within the terraced row.

In 1933 the farmyard was recorded in the First General Revaluation, and a plan and dimensions are given, showing in detail, some of the buildings that were added between 1861 and 1895. Building ‘a’ (barrel-vaulted, double-width with Belfast trusses) is identified as a garage for two cars. It is unclear whether this building was reconstructed or remodelled between 1895 and 1933 but this appears likely given its use – field inspection and map evidence suggests that although the building itself is probably earlier, the roof structure may have been replaced in the early decades of the 20th century in order to provide an open space without supporting walls. It should also be noted that building 'b' is barrel-vaulted which may indicate a supporting structure of Belfast trusses. All the other buildings in the farmyard are grouped together in the 1930s valuation record as agricultural ‘offices’ or outbuildings.

Buildings with curved barrel roofs supported by timber ‘Belfast’ trusses are a characteristic Northern Irish type. A thematic survey of Belfast trusses in Northern Ireland carried out in 2003 identified 75 structures and 40 of these were recorded in detail. The roof form was first recorded in the 1860s and was widely used for industrialised buildings up to the First World War with its use declining thereafter, as steel trusses became more widely available. Although timber bowstring girders with any form of bracing supporting a barrel roof are now termed Belfast trusses, the first recorded example of a true ‘Belfast’ truss, in which the bracing is arranged in a fan-like manner, dates from a building constructed in Norfolk, the trusses for which were tested by Young and Mackenzie in Belfast in 1905. Although the Belfast truss roof became less common after the WWI, it was still used for small and medium-sized roof spans up to the 1930s and beyond, including for garages and farm outbuildings. It should be noted that the Richardson family added this building to the farmyard and would have had access to engineers with experience of constructing large mill sheds which may have had a similar roof construction.

Derrymore House and demesne, together with the outbuildings/farmyard became the property of the National Trust in 1952 (an aerial image of the house and outbuildings from this era is held by the University of Cambridge), and was officially opened, after restoration, in 1957. The former workers’ cottages to the N of the farmyard have been heavily remodelled since the 1950s and now comprise a single dwelling. The buildings within the former farmyard remain in use as outbuildings.

References:

Primary Sources:
1. Belfast Commercial Chronicle, 5th September 1807
2. Dublin Evening Post, 19th January 1815
3. PRONI VAL/1/B/246A-E – Townland Valuation
4. PRONI VAL/2/b/39A-C – Griffith’s Valuation
5. PRONI OS/6/2/26/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1834-35)
6. PRONI OS/6/2/26/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1861)
7. PRONI OS/6/2/26/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1906)
8. PRONI OS/6/2/26/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1956)
9. Banner of Ulster, 3rd April 1858
10. Newry Herald, 17th September 1864
11. PRONI VAL/12/B/15/1A-K – Annual Revisions (1866-1929)
12. PRONI VAL/3/C/2/13 – First General Revaluation NI (1936-1957)
13. PRONI VAL/3/D/2/6/L/4 – Valuer’s Binder (1933-1957)
14. Cambridge Air Photos www.cambridgeairphotos.com (JN070)
15. Large scale Ordnance Survey maps 1895, 1896, 1906, 1956, 1971, 1988 (www.centremapslive.co.uk)

Secondary Sources:

1. Bessbrook: The Model Village 1845-1995 (Anniversary Publication)
2. Derrymore, National Trust publication (1963)
3. Harrison, R. S. (2008) The Richardsons of Bessbrook: Ulster Quakers in the Linen Industry (1845-1921) Dublin: Original Writing
4. Hossack, H. A Thematic Survey of Belfast Roof Trusses. (Unpublished Historic Buildings Unit report)
5. Jupp, Belinda (2007) Historic Landscape Survey, Derrymore. Unpublished report, National Trust.
6. Mulligan, Kevin V (2013) Pevsner Architectural Guide – The Buildings of Ireland – South Ulster. New Haven and London: Yale University Press
7. Reeves-Smyth, T. Derrymore House and The Wood House. (undated notes held by HED)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
G. Innovatory Qualities
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
Z. Rarity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Located within the Derrymore and Woodhouse Demesne, the service yard of Derrymore House includes a central core of two storey buildings which pre-date the 1834-5 OS map, together with buildings that were added between 1861 and 1895 with a notable addition of motor house with Belfast Roof Truss roofing in the early 20th century. The service yard is a small collection of outbuildings arranged around three sides of two courts with the remaining eastern side of each court enclosed by a rubble wall with gateway. The complex is screened from Derrymore House with judicious planting of belts of mature trees.

The outbuildings are an integral part of the estate which was designed by the celebrated landscape gardener and architect John Sutherland. It is likely that Sutherland designed the grade A listed Derrymore House which is a unique survival of the Picturesque Movement in Ireland mentioned by Sir Coote in 1803 that Derrymore was 'without exception the most elegant summer lodge I have ever seen'. The outbuildings are mentioned in the advertisement for sale of the house in 1807 offering with the house 'stalls for 13 horses and standing for 4 carriages'. The outbuildings have group value within the Grade A landscape park of the Derrymore House and Woodhouse i.e. with Derrrymore House (HB16/023/010), Woodhouse (HB16/23/013), Hortus Lodge (HB16/23/008) and the gate lodge and gatescreen (HB16/23/004) and Rose Cottage (HB16/23/009). While 20th century alterations have taken place over the years, much original historic fabric remains.