Mount Ida

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached symmetrical three-bay two-storey over basement with attic rendered country house, built c.1770, with two full-height bows. Square on plan facing west and set on an elevated site within extensive landscaped grounds to the east of Barronstown Road with a range of two-storey rendered outbuildings to the rear. Derelict and roofless in 1975, the house has since been heavily refurbished.

Replacement pitched artificial slate roof with cement verges, replacement rendered profiled chimneystacks set behind lead-lined front parapet wall. Replacement cast-iron rainwater goods to the rear. Ruled-and-lined cement rendered walling with cut stone plinth course over basement. Square-headed window openings with replacement moulded concrete sills and replacement multi-pane timber sash windows to the front and side elevations, multi-pane timber casement windows to the rear.

Symmetrical front elevation is five windows wide with a pair of shallow full-height bows to either end. Central round-headed door opening with replacement tripartite timber doorcase, door and spider web fanlight. Door opens onto concrete paved perron, bridging the basement area and six swept nosed concrete steps enclosed by replacement steel railings on concrete plinth wall.

North gabled side elevation with roof extending across rear extension as a catslide roof at the same pitch having two chimneystacks rising from the concrete verge. Irregular fenestration pattern with replacement timber sash and timber casement windows. Abutting this elevation is a two-storey rendered wing set at a 45 degree angle.

Rear elevation has a central gabled section housing the staircase with round-headed window openings and a further single-storey gabled accretion at ground level. Enlarged window openings to the ground floor with modern wall head dormers to the right bay.
South gabled side elevation has a similar roof profile to the north gable with irregular fenestration pattern and abutted by a single-storey conservatory.

Setting

Rear tarmacadam yard enclosed by L-shaped range of two-storey rendered outbuildings having replacement pitched concrete tiled roofs and replacement sheeted timber doors. A long winding bitmac avenue, lined with mature trees opens onto the road via replacement iron gates on pair of rendered piers with low quadrant walls having original granite coping and possibly original cast-iron railings.

Roof Artificial slate
Walling Ruled-and-lined cement render
Windows Replacement timber sash
RWG Replacement cast-iron

Historical information

Mount Ida pre-dates the first ordnance survey of 1833 and documentary sources suggest that there was a house on the site from at least 1796. A late-eighteenth century date can be attributed to the building on the basis of its external features as little of the original interior remains. Much of the original fabric of the building has been replaced as it was a roofless ruin when taken over by the current owners

The house is shown, uncaptioned on the first edition OS map of 1833 together with an L-shaped outbuilding to the rear which appears to have survived to the present day. A ‘greenhouse’ to the south facade which appears on the second edition of 1860 and is identified in later valuer’s notes has now been replaced by a conservatory.

During a period of unrest in Ireland leading up to the United Irishmen rebellion of 1798 there was a theft of firearms from a house near Mount Ida, although the occupier is not noted. William Todd Jones was living at Mount Ida in 1811 and by 1822 the occupant was George Dowglass. The house remained in the Dowglass family for some years and the Townland Valuation of 1828-40 notes the occupier as Thomas Dowglass Esq. Dowglass was a well-known evangelical preacher and Brethren leader. (www.brethrenhistory.org) Dimensions are given for a house with basement and ‘outshot’ and six slated outbuildings, valued together at £28.15s. OS Memoirs record the house as one of the gentlemen’s seats of the area. In 1836 Dowglass moved away and the entire household furniture at Mount Ida was sold at auction including such items as ‘Rosewood, Zebrawood and French Drawing-Room Chairs, Telescope Dining-Tables and Dining room Chairs with Morocco Leather seats’. Also sold were a number of agricultural items, a strong pony, plough and harrow and bean and turnip cutters. (Belfast Newsletter)

By 1841 the occupier was Captain John Watson Hull of the East India Company and after his death his widow Martha continued to live at the house. She is listed in Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) as the occupier of the 77 acres estate and dimensions are given for a 2½ storey house with basement and six outbuildings, all valued at £40. After Martha Hull’s death in 1877 the house was sold at auction for £2,846.

Abraham Walker Henderson was the next resident at Mount Ida from 1879 and appears to have led the life of a country squire with the house providing a frequent venue for hunt meetings, so much so that at a hunt dinner for the members of the County Down Staghounds in 1899 the bill of fare included ‘Sorbet à la Mount Ida’. (Belfast Newsletter) However, the house began to fall into disrepair in this period and the valuation was reduced to £30, the valuer commenting that the former gentleman’s residence was now in the occupation of a tenant farmer ‘for whom it is most unsuitable’. Abraham Walker Henderson is recorded in the 1901 census as a farmer of 58 living with his wife, four children, one son working as a collector of the poor rate and the other children assisting on the farm. The family employed a farm servant of 16. The ten-room house was designated first class.

In the first general revaluation of the 1930s the farm was inspected and found to be in poor condition. The accommodation comprised three unused attics, four bedrooms and a boxroom, three receptions, two kitchens in the basement and an ‘old’ bathroom. The property subsequently became derelict and when taken over by the current owners was little more than a shell. Consequently much of the interior and exterior is replacement.

References:
Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/27/1 First Edition OS Map 1833
2. PRONI OS/6/3/27/2 Second Edition OS map 1860
3. PRONI OS/6/3/27/3 Third Edition OS Map 1903
4. PRONI OS/6/3/27/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1903-18
5. PRONI VAL/1/B/342 Townland Valuation (1828-40)
6. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/38D Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
7. PRONI VAL/12/A/3/2 Valuer’s Notes 1898
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/23A-E Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
9. PRONI VAL/3/C/4/3 – First General Revaluation (1933-57)
10. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/3/P/6 – First General Revaluation (1933-57)
11. PRONI D556/238 Lease to George Dowglass 1822
12. PRONI D607/D/11 House near Mount Ida robbed of arms 1796
13. PRONI D671/C/12/66 William Todd Jones of Mount Ida 1811
14. Belfast Newsletter 8th July 1836
15. Belfast Newsletter 10th November 1842
16. Belfast Newsletter 1st December 1877
17. Belfast Newsletter 6th February 1899
18. 1901 census online
19. 1911 census online

Secondary Sources

1. www.brethrenhistory.org

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Detached symmetrical three-bay two-storey over basement with attic rendered country house, built c.1770, with two full-height bows. Square on plan facing west and set on an elevated site within extensive landscaped grounds to the east of Barronstown Road with a range of two-storey rendered outbuildings to the rear. Having been roofless during the 1970s, the house is largely a reconstruction with all fabric replaced except for the outer shell. Although significant in the locale, insufficient fabric survives to merit listing and there are other, better, examples listed.