Glendaragh

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single storey, 5-bay, rendered house. Main entrance faces east.

Entrance elevation has hipped roof of asbestos slates in regular courses; two modern flush rooflights; chimneys of modern rustic brick. Moulded cast iron gutter with cast iron downpipes. Walling is of dry dash with black stone chippings; entire entrance front shrouded in creeper. Windows to main front are rectangular timber casements, divided by transom and mullion, and lattice paned; projecting stone cills with intricate decorative carvings in shallow relief to front face; Tudor-style drip moulds. Main entrance comprises rectangular timber double doors, lattice-glazed, and panelled, incorporating a moulded timber transom and mullion, with lattice-glazed sidelights and fanlight; trellis panelling to lower panels of side lights.

One of the original returns has been demolished and some of the rear has been remodelled in a modern style. Surviving original side and rear elevations are of similar architectural character to entrance front, with the addition of a shallow bow to the west, incorporating two bowed windows. Original windows to side and rear elevations display Tudor style drip moulds, constructed of plaster generally except at south end of entrance block where it is made of wood.
Original side and rear elevations include modern replacement windows and a modern door and fanlight to the north end of the north wing which detract from the original Tudor Revivalist character. The general architectural character of the remodelled rear elevations is of the mid-to-late 20th century.

SETTING: The house stands in its own extensive and secluded grounds at the end of a long winding driveway from the main road. It is surrounded by agricultural land and mature trees. A former stable yard stands detached to the north, and an ice house to the north-east of that.

Historical information

Built c 1805 by Lt. Col. Langford Heyland; by the 1880s it was owned by C.E. McClintock, land agent for the Langford Lodge estate; bought by the Aldworth family in 1922; nearly half of the original house demolished in 1950 due to dry rot.
Originally the house appears to have been built in four ranges around a central rectangular courtyard. It was described in the 1830s as “quite in the cottage style, but 1-storey. In the exterior of the house there is nothing ornamented or striking, but the interior is admirably constructed. It contains a regular suite of apartments. The vestibule, hall, corridors and doors are of Gothic style and the windows of the dining and sitting rooms beautifully stained, and command an extensive and agreeable view of the lake and intervening scenery”.
Several details of the house have been attributed elsewhere to the Belfast architect John Millar but there appears to be no sound or convincing evidence to sustain this attribution.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1832-3, Co Antrim 59.
2. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Vol 35: Parishes of County Antrim XIII, 1833, 1835, 1838 (Belfast, 1996), pp 13-14, 42, 47.
3. S. Lewis, Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (London, 1837), p 133.
4. G.H. Bassett, The Book of Antrim (Dublin, 1888), p 248.
Secondary Sources
1. R.M. Young, Belfast and the Province of Ulster in the Twentieth Century (Brighton, 1909), p 213.
2. U.A.H.S., West Antrim (Belfast, 1970), p 9.
3. J.A.K. Dean, The Gate Lodges of Ulster (Belfast, 1994), p 15.
4. C.E.B. Brett, Buildings of County Antrim (Belfast, 1996), pp 218-9.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is a building which retains a number of interesting architectural details both inside and out, which are worth recording for historical and comparative purposes, but the original integrity of the building has been severely damaged by the demolition of almost half the building and the remodelling of other elements.