Ava Gallery, Clandeboye Estate, Clandeboye, Bangor, Co Down, BT19 1RN

Former Gasworks, Clandeboye Estate (now Ava Gallery)

This is a three-storey former estate gasworks built in 1871–72 in the Scottish baronial style, converted from an earlier barn and now used as a gallery. It is probably the work of Sir Benjamin Ferrey, or at least inspired by him, given its close similarity in gable and chimney detailing to Helen's Bay Station. It is likely the most elaborate surviving example of the relatively few domestic gasworks that once existed in Northern Ireland, and it also has group value as part of the wider Clandeboye Estate.

Location and Setting

The building stands between the vestry of Clandeboye Chapel and a single-storey former outbuilding at the south-west corner of the farmyard just west of Clandeboye House. It forms part of the south-west corner of the stable and coach yards, which comprise a quadrilateral courtyard arrangement of single- and two-storey rubble stone outbuildings. The wider estate is reached via a long sweeping drive from the main Bangor Road to the north.

Exterior

The building is aligned north-east to south-west, with its principal elevation facing south-east into the courtyard. It is a three-storey, two-bay structure with a shallow gabled return on its north-west elevation. The roof is pitched natural slate, with raised crow-stepped gables coped in cut sandstone. Rainwater goods are half-round metal gutters with circular metal downpipes. The walls are of quarried Silurian rubble with a cut sandstone eaves course.

The south-east elevation clearly shows two phases of construction. The ground floor is built of small stones that continue through into the adjoining single-storey building to the right, while the upper floors are of much larger stones. The top floor of the right-hand bay is supported on a moulded sandstone corbel.

The ground floor of this elevation has three doorways. The rightmost has a flat brick head matching the openings on the adjoining single-storey building and contains a large three-pane window. The remaining two doorways have semicircular brick heads: the middle one has been converted to a window opening, and the left one has a dummy sheeted timber door. A small square window opening has been inserted between the second and third doorways from the left. At first-floor level in the left bay there are two flat brick-headed window openings; the left one has been infilled with random rubble, and the right contains a 1-over-1 sliding sash window with a stone cill. The top floor has two larger square-headed window openings, each with ashlar sandstone dressings and containing a 1-over-1 sliding sash window with a chamfered cill. Directly above each of these top-floor windows is an eaves gable, detailed to match the main gables, each bearing a blank sandstone shield in bas-relief. The south-west gable of the three-storey building has no openings.

The north-west elevation is built of smaller Silurian stonework at ground and first-floor levels, with larger stones above and throughout the chimney, and the break between the two phases is clearly visible. The ground floor of the right-hand bay has two semicircular brick-arched doorways, both infilled with random rubble. That bay also has two brick-headed window openings at first-floor level; the right one has been infilled with stone and the left contains a 2-over-2 sliding sash window with a stone cill. Each bay has a 1-over-1 sliding sash window at second-floor level, each with a chamfered sandstone cill. In the apex of the gable to the return of the right-hand bay is a small slit window with an ashlar sandstone surround.

A rubble Silurian masonry chimney of square cross-section occupies the corner to the left of the return. At roofline level it steps in slightly and continues to its full height in regularly coursed sandstone blocks, finished with a tapered, projecting cut sandstone coping. At the base of its north face is a small metal opening set within a brick-lined recess, probably for cleaning out the chimney and/or controlling the draught.

The exposed section of the north-east gable of the three-storey building has two square-headed louvred openings trimmed with sandstone. The apex of this gable formerly housed a bronze bell — apparently from Burma and installed around 1898 — which is currently in safe storage while its protective pitched slate canopy is refurbished.

Plan Form and Function

The plan form of the building reflects the functional differentiation of its two main internal spaces: one bay housed the gas retorts used for manufacturing the gas, and the other housed the gasholder for storing it.

Historical Development

The gasworks was built in 1871–72 at a recorded cost of £680 6s 8d, with a further £30 10s 9d spent on gas-making, as documented in the Clandeboye Estate General Analysis account book. Since acetylene gas had not yet been developed at that time, the plant undoubtedly used coal, which could be imported relatively easily via the railway. Further modifications appear to have been made in the late 1870s, with expenditures of £67 9s 1d and £46 7s 5d recorded for 1877–78 and 1879–80 respectively.

The first edition Ordnance Survey six-inch map of 1834 shows a building on this site. The physical evidence indicates it was originally a two-storey structure, three openings wide. When the gas plant was installed in the early 1870s, the northern two bays of this building appear to have been raised by a full storey, and the south end bay of the adjoining single-storey building raised by two storeys, creating the present three-storey, two-bay form along with its chimney. The south bay housed the gasholder and the north bay the retorts. At some later date, the south bay of the original two-storey building was reduced to its present single storey.

A coal gas plant was eventually superseded by an acetylene gas plant — which cannot have been installed before around 1880, as it was not possible to manufacture calcium carbide before that date. This newer plant was located just south of the farmyard; its associated external gasholder is shown on the 1895 Ordnance Survey 25-inch map. Electric lighting replaced the gas plant in the 1920s. The coal gas retorts and holder were subsequently removed from the now-defunct coal gasworks, and the building was later converted into a grain dryer and silo before its current use as a gallery.