South gate lodge to Delamont House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Small gate lodge (to Delamont House) of c.1840s with steeply pitched gabled porch, rubble front façade and large, recently added, return. The property is set on the E side of the Killyleagh Road, c.3 miles SW of the town of Killyleagh itself.

The front façade faces roughly W and is symmetrical. To the centre is a projecting porch with steeply pitched gable. The porch contains a timber sheeted door with stone ‘hood’ on brackets above. To the gable there is an narrow ‘arrow loop’ slit recess in dressed sandstone. The gable rests on [?]sandstone corbels and has a moulded verge. To either side of the porch is a single sash window with horizontal and vertical glazing bars arranged to give vertical margin panes.

The N gable is rendered and has a small attic window with six pane frame. This gable also has corbelled ‘ends’. The S gable is largely identical to that to the N. The S gable is taller that that to the N as the ground level drops to the SE side of the building.

To the rear there is a central single storey return with basement. To the S there is a high level sash window with vertical margin panes. At basement (ground) level there is a low timber sheeted door. To the gable there is a sash window at high ground floor level and another to attic level. The latter window is of the more conventional ‘2/2’ type. To the N there is a window (as S) and a partly glazed door (with margin panes to glazing. A short section of rubble wall extends from the N face of the return. Either side of the return (to main rear façade) is a single window, as front. The return and rear façade are rendered.

The entire roof is covered in natural slate. Rendered parapets to N and S gables. Three Velux windows to rear / return. Metal rw goods.

Low curving rubble wall to front with gate screen to N. The gate screen has plain square pillars with pyramidal caps. The S pillar has been partly rebuilt (with cement facing) in recent years. The iron gates has decorative cast iron ‘spear heads’ but are overall relatively plain. Higher rubble wall to N of gate screen.

Historical information

This gate lodge is shown on the OS map of 1859-60 and may have been built in the 1840s (some sources say 1841). It was built to serve a new secondary southern entrance to the Delamont House estate, then in the hands of the Gordon family. The property was acquired by Down District Council (along with the estate) in 1987. Since then a new (presumably enlarged) return has been added to the rear.

DELAMONT HOUSE
The present Delamont House stands next to a rath, indicating that this general site may have been occupied as far back as early Christian ,or even prehistoric times. A not insubstantial residence is shown either on this rath or close to it on Thomas Raven’s c.1625 map of Mullagh townland, then part of the estate of James Hamilton, Viscount Clandeboye.

In 1733 Mullagh was bought by Thomas Delahaye from Viscount Limerick (a descendant of James Hamilton). It was possibly as a play on his name that the new owner called his estate ‘Delamont’. Delahaye’s residence (which he probably built shortly after 1733) is shown on Taylor and Skinner’s map of 1777, where it is erroneously marked ‘Dallymount’.

In 1793 the Delamont estate was sold by Thomas Delahaye’s [?]daughter to David Gordon, a member of a Belfast merchant family, whose brother, Robert, had acquired Florida Manor (through marriage) some years previously. On Robert’s death Florida was also to pass into David’s hands.

It is not certain whether David Gordon rebuilt Delamont, or merely enlarged the existing Delahaye dwelling. The house is shown on the 1834 OS map as a large, roughly L shaped building, with further block to the immediate north. The contemporary valuation returns tell us that the was already two and half storey at that stage, with a full height projecting porch (presumably to the front and possibly the forerunner of the present entrance tower); the block to the north, which appears to have been physically separate single storey outbuilding. The valuers also state that in their view the house was fairly recently built (they graded it ‘A’) suggesting that the original Delamont, if not demolished was completely renovated and possibly extended by Gordon.

The 1859-60 OS map shows a plan similar to that to that of 1834, but small projections to the front and south are also indicated. That to front may well be a mainly glazed single storey outer porch shown on later photograph of c.1900, whilst the projection to the south is probably the large conservatory also shown on the same photograph. It is possible that the Tudoresque embellishments to the building had been carried out by this date (the heyday of the Tudor revival being the 1840s), however, Gordon family history suggests that these may have been executed by Robert Gordon in c.1875. A clue to the date of the changes may lie in the fact that the slightly Tudoresque south gate lodge (which is shown on the 1859-60 map) is believed to have been constructed in 1841- .

Photographs of c.1900 show the extent of the Tudor restyling with a profusion of gables, tall brick chimney stacks and a central ogee capped bell tower present. The unusual ‘American gothick’ (for want of a better term) entrance tower was also in place at this stage. This tower may well represent a heightening and perhaps remodelling of the full height porch recorded in the 1830s, however, the lack of any hint of Tudoresque detailing suggests that this remodelling took place in the late 1800s.

In c.1938 the glazed outer porch to the front was removed and internal changes were apparently made to servants’ rooms (presumably to the attic floor). Delamont retained this form until the 1960s, when, following a fire much of the western half of the house had to be demolished, with the remaining front portion was refashioned in 1967-68 to designs by Arthur Jury.

In the later 1970s the last of the Gordon residents ran a restaurant from the house, but in 1985 he sold the whole Delamont estate to Down District Council and Belfast Education and Library Board. Two years later the house reopened as an outdoor education centre. The estate grounds themselves now serving as a country park.

References- Primary sources
1 Map by Thomas Raven, c.1625, showing the townlands of Mullagh and Tullykin (original at Bangor Castle, reproduced in Lindsay Proudfoot ed., ‘Down- History and society’ (Dublin 1997), p.46)
3 PRONI D.4204 Gordon family papers
2 ‘Taylor and Skinner’s Maps of the roads of Ireland (Dublin 1777), map 281
4 PRONI OS/6/3/31/1 OS map, 1834, Down 31
5 ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland vol.17: Parishes of County Down IV’, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams
(QUB 1992), p.81 [c.1835]
6 PRONI VAL/1A/3/31 1st valuation map, c.1835, Down 31
7 PRONI VAL/1B/336 1st valuation, Killyleagh (Barony of Dufferin), 1838
8 PRONI OS/6/3/31/2 OS map, 1859, Down 31
9 PRONI 2nd (‘Griffith’s) valuation, Killyleagh, 1863
10 PRONI OS/6/3/31/3 OS map, 1901, Down 31
11 Robert M. Young, ‘Belfast and the Province of Ulster in the 20th century’ (Brighton 1909), p.278 [This book includes a photograph of Delamont House c.1900]
12 PRONI OS/6/3/31/4 OS map, 1920, Down 31

Secondary sources
1 Mark Bence-Jones, ‘A guide to Irish country houses’ (London 1988), p.101

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
H-. Alterations detracting from building

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Small gate lodge (to Delamont House) of c.1840s with steeply pitched gabled porch, rubble front façade and large, recently added, return. To the immediate north of the lodge is a simple gate screen with square, pyramidal capped pillars and relatively plain iron gates.