Loughbrickland House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey five-bay detached country house with attached farmyard, built c.1785 and extended to northwest in 1826 to designs by Thomas Duff, and again to southeast in 1869. Located on the east side of Scarva Street in Loughbrickland. L-shaped on plan with two-storey canted bay (1826), bow bay (1869) and a projecting porch (1826) to front; double return to rear abutted by a single-storey lean-to extension. To southeast is a two-storey projecting box bay abutted by a conservatory. The house occupies the south corner of a rectangular courtyard of outbuildings and opens into a walled garden at east.

Pitched natural slate roof with blue/black angled ridge tiles, simple bargeboards, and a variety of painted smooth render chimneystacks with moulded caps and tall terracotta pots. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on ovolo moulded eaves course. Walling is roughcast render on a smooth rendered plinth; string course between floors at gabled bay; entrance porch is painted smooth render. Windows are a variety of timber sliding sash, mainly 2/2 to first floor and 1/1 to ground floor with projecting stone sills. Entrance porch is flanked by a single tripartite window comprising, 2/2 window flanked by narrow 1/1 window.

The principal elevation faces southwest and is almost symmetrically arranged with central bay three openings wide having projecting porch to centre; to left is a full-height canted bay window with window to each facet at each floor; to right is a gabled bay which encompasses a full-height bowed bay having three windows to each floor. Entrance porch is set on a masonry plinth, having corner pilasters surmounted by entablature and a corniced parapet; round-arched windows with glazing bars to either cheek. Six-panelled bolection moulded timber door in chamfered and moulded recess with brass knob, accessed via two bull-nosed steps.

The northwest elevation has a 3/3 window to left at first floor.

The rear northeast elevation has a 6/3 window to first floor right; abutted to centre by the double return entered by a modern flush door off-centre to left; to first floor are two timber casement windows at different levels; timber casement window and modern lean-to extension at ground floor right. The northwest elevation of return has two windows to ground and first floor; partially recessed to right having a diminutive window to first and ground floor. The southeast elevation of the return is abutted by the two-storey box bay and conservatory at re-entrant angle; two timber casement windows to first floor and also to ground floor right; 2/2 window to ground floor left.

The southeast elevation has gabled breakfront to centre flanked by 1/1 window at first and ground floor.

Setting

Partially cobbled yard directly to rear and various renovated rubble stone outbuildings with red-brick dressings, now in use as holiday lets. To north is another yard accessed via round rubble stone piers with masonry caps supporting modern metal gates. This yard is enclosed by the converted coach house to south and double-height barn to west. To northeast is a carriage arch containing metal gates, giving access to the walled garden.

The house occupies a large site surrounded by mature trees with views over surrounding farmland. It is accessed by a long tarmacadam lane leading to a gravelled courtyard to rear accessed via a rubble stone elliptical arch. Bounded to south by a roughcast rendered wall having four square gate piers with pointed caps supporting cast-iron gates. At the east side of the entrance is a single-storey gate lodge, which appears to have been extensively remodelled.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Render
Windows: Timber
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

Loughbrickland House, formerly known as ‘Col(e)nacran Lodge’ was built by the distinguished military family the Whytes, who were among the earliest English settlers in Ireland and has remained in the family to the present day. The house was built in 1785 and extended to designs by Thomas Duff in 1826. A further Victorian extension was added in 1869. ‘Colnacran Lodge’ is shown captioned on an 1810 map of County Down, but does not appear on Taylor and Skinner’s maps of 1777.

Loughbrickland town was established in the late 16th century by Sir Marmaduke Whitchurch, to whom Queen Elizabeth granted the lands in 1585. Whitchurch built a castle on the shores of the lake and shortly afterwards a church and a mill, laying the foundations of the town for which he obtained the grant of a market and two fairs and established a Protestant colony. The town and church were destroyed in the 1641 rebellion but in 1688 the church was rebuilt and the town gradually grew up once more. (Lewis)

Frances Whitchurch, daughter and heiress of Sir Marmaduke married Marcus Trevor who later became the first Viscount Dungannon. One of their grandchildren, Mary Purcell married John Whyte of Leixlip Castle in 1704. (Irish Times) Colonel John Whyte was descended from the ‘ancient and eminent’ Whyte family who trace their descent from Ethelbert Le Whyte, Chief Justice in Pembroke in the late 12th century. In 1170 Le Whyte’s son Walter accompanied Strongbow to Ireland and was knighted by Henry II in 1171, being rewarded with large grants of land on the west shore of Strangford Lough. His descendant Sir Nicholas Whyte of Leixlip was MP for Kilkenny County 1559, Seneschal of County Waterford, 1560 and Master of the Rolls in Ireland, 1572. Colonel John Whyte, Sir Nicholas’s grandson is said to have built Loughbrickland House shortly after his marriage to Mary Purcell in the early eighteenth century. However, the house does not appear on early maps and surviving family papers of 1785 including calculations of the yardage of masonry and tiling in the house (used to estimate payments to tradesmen) suggest that the house was newly-built in 1785. (PRONI)

Loughbrickland House became the family seat of the Whytes towards the end of the 18th century. They are remarkable for ‘having retained both their Catholic religion and their lands throughout the years of the Penal Laws’ when many other catholic landholders were forced to give up their land or change religion. (Purdue) It is thought that the Whytes were able to retain their estates through the harshest period of penal law because of their relationship with the Trevors and the presence of Arthur Hill, also related to the Trevors, as a leasing party in Whyte leases. (PRONI) As a prominent Catholic family, the views of the Whytes were sought on subjects such as Catholic Emancipation and Nicholas Whyte was assured in 1829 that the petition he had drawn up from the Catholics of County Down in favour of emancipation, ‘would ensure the ready and favourable reception’ of the Bill in the House of Commons. (PRONI)

In 1826 the house was extended by a bay to the north-west to designs by Thomas Duff, and it was also at this time that the porch was added, the house originally having been of three-bay Georgian design. A considerable number of papers have survived relating to this remodel, including a number of designs that were ultimately rejected, correspondence with Duff whos design was later built and tradesmen’s accounts. (PRONI) The house was now the home of Nicholas C Whyte (1784-1844), who had inherited the estate from his father John Whyte, after his elder brother had been disinherited. He is listed as the occupier in the Townland Valuation of 1828-40. Whyte’s correspondence with Duff, who was also the designer of Loughbrickland’s catholic church at around the same time, shows that Whyte found the winds on the front of the house ‘fierce’ and wanted a closed porch, together with a drawing room that would command a full view of the lake. Duff suggested that the external appearance would ‘imitate the old English Manor House which style would look well in such situation’. Nicholas C Whyte is thought to have been the first of the Whyte family to live at Loughbrickland, his ancestors having been absentee landlords who followed careers in the army. (Sands)

The house and offices are valued at £32 in the 1830s and appear captioned ‘Loughbrickland House’ on the first edition OS map of 1833. The house, porch and bow-fronted extension by Duff are shown, together with the double-pile return and outbuildings forming a courtyard to the rear. The house is set in a tree-lined demesne that partially encloses the impressive Coolnacran rath, here marked as a ‘fort’. Shortly after Catholic Emancipation in 1829 Nicholas Whyte was made sheriff of County Down, not having previously been eligible for the post. (PRONI) Nicholas Charles Whyte died in 1844 and his successor was his son John Joseph Whyte, still a minor at the time, who is later listed as the occupier in Griffith’s Valuation of 1856-64. The house, offices and two gate lodges are valued at £45 and dimensions are given for the house, two 2-storey outbuildings and two single-storey. The OS map edition of the period shows no significant changes.

John Joseph Whyte, like many others of the Whyte family, travelled widely and his journal of a visit to Palestine in 1850 still survives. He was Sheriff of County Down 1862-3 and a Deputy Lieutenant of Down from 1863. In 1869 the house was extended by another bay to the south-east and the valuation was consequently raised to £75. The Whyte family appear to have been absent at the time of the 1901 census and only servants, a farm servant, laundress and general domestic, were living at the house which is a first class dwelling of 20 rooms with 17 outbuildings, owned by John J Whyte ‘of Dublin’. By 1911 the house is home to John J Whyte’s two daughters. Nancy Corbally (nee Whyte) lives at the house with her three young children and her sister, Kathleen Whyte - they are the two youngest of John Joseph Whyte’s 14 children. The family have a staff of three, a nurse from Manchester, a cook from County Meath and a house and parlour maid. John Joseph Whyte died in August 1916 and was succeeded by his eldest surviving son George Thomas Whyte who is listed as the occupier in valuation records from 1918 and then his wife Magadelena Esther Whyte after his death in 1919. George Thomas was followed by his brothers, first Major Thomas Aloysius Whyte who died in 1931 and then Lieutenant-Colonel William Henry Whyte DSO of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, who had served with distinction in the Boer War and the Great War of 1914-18 in which he was three times wounded and three times mentioned in dispatches. (Irish Times)

Lt-Colonel William Henry Whyte died in 1949 and was described in the Newry Reporter as a ‘member of an old and esteemed Loughbrickland family’. He had been president of the Warrenpoint and Rostrevor Branch of the British Legion and had commanded the 3rd (Down) Battalion of the Home Guard from 1940 to 1942. He was prominent in the Recruiting and Savings Campaign in Newry during the war. (Purdue)

At the time of the First General Revaluation (1933-57) the house was occupied by Magdalene E Whyte who owned the house in fee. The accommodation comprised on the ground floor, a hall, library, drawing room, dining room, breakfast room, kitchen, scullery with hot and cold water, larder, butler’s pantry with hot and cold water, a servants’ hall, a storeroom and office. On the first floor were seven bedrooms, two dressing rooms, a nursery, schoolroom, two bathrooms with hot and cold water and WC, a separate WC and a housemaid’s room with hot and cold water. On the second floor were 4 attic bedrooms, a box room and a boarded roof space. There were four cellars in the basement. Outside was an engine house with a 10 horse power crude oil engine for powering electric light and a water pump. Outbuildings included a garage, fowl houses, byres, a greenhouse, piggery and gate lodge. In the grounds were a croquet lawn, lawns, flowerbed borders and a plantation.

In 1935 following an appeal the house was assessed by a valuer and found to be a “large old type country residence…substantially built. Moderately well finished internally and generally in fair state of repair. The house is inconveniently laid out and there is a considerable amount of waste space. The accommodation is in excess of normal requirements.” The large drawing room was unfurnished and the kitchen partly disused and in need of modernising. The valuation was subsequently reduced from £70 to £65. During the war in 1941 part of the grounds was occupied by the War Department, 28 acres, and later another 16 acres. Then in 1942 part of the house was requisitioned, three rooms on the ground floor and 4 rooms on the first floor, also the back hall on the ground floor and a share in the use of the main hall and corridors (about 40% of the building).

In 1953 part of the house comprising 5 rooms, bathroom and kitchen together with a garage and garden was let for £160 per annum and a third of the rates by Magdalena Whyte to Norman G D Ferguson.

The house continues in private ownership. In recent years an old coach house to the rear has been converted for use as holiday accommodation. (www.loughbricklandcourtyard.com)

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/34/1 First Edition OS Map 1834
2. PRONI OS/6/3/34/2 Second Edition OS map 1860
3. PRONI OS/6/3/34/3 Third Edition OS Map 1903
4. PRONI OS/6/3/34/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1903-18
5. PRONI VAL/1/B/351 Townland Valuation (1828-40)
6. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/55D Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/18A-E Annual Revisions (1864-1930)
8. PRONI VAL/3/C/4/3 – First General Revaluation (1936-57)
9. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/3/N/2 – First General Revaluation (1933-57)
10. PRONI D616 – Map of County Down 1810
11. PRONI D671/C/12/420 – Letter from NC Whyte to Lord Downshire (28th November 1829)
12. PRONI D2918 – Whyte family papers
13. Irish Times 15th March 1941

Secondary Sources

1. Lewis, Samuel. “A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland” London: S. Lewis & Co., 1837.
2. Purdue, O “The Big House in the North of Ireland, Land, Power and Social Elites, 1878-1960” University College Dublin
Press, 2009
3. Sands, J J “The Great Famine in the Loughbrickland area 1840-1850” Poyntzpass and District Local History Society
Magazine, Issue 3, 1987
4. www.loughbricklandcourtyard.com

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Loughbrickland House is a two-storey five-bay detached house with attached farmyard, built c.1785, extended to designs by Thomas Duff in the early Nineteenth century. Composed on a symmetrical plan with projecting entrance porch and double return to rear, architectural detailing is largely intact and much historic fabric has survived. There has been some remodelling of the interior to accommodate two separate dwellings, but the floor-plan is largely unchanged and the evolution of the house is of interest, especially as an example of the work of a notable local architect. The setting survives with a walled garden and adds to the historic interest of the site. The original gate lodge has been lost and the replacement is inappropriate in scale and materials, detracting from the character of the main entrance. Loughbrickland House is a good example of a late eighteenth-century house and of note as the home of one of the oldest families of Irish gentry forming an unbroken line.