Riverdale House and Rocaille, 19 Aghalee Road, Aghagallon, Co Antrim, BT67 0AR

Riverdale House and Rocaille, 19 Aghalee Road, Aghagallon

Riverdale House is a substantial detached two-storey dwelling of 1910–11, prominently set within spacious grounds in a semi-rural location just north of the village of Aghagallon. It was built by Jonathan Gilbert, the then owner of the threshing mill complex on the opposite side of Aghalee Road (constructed from the 1870s onwards and converted to a wedding venue around 2000). The identity of the architect is not known. The property appears to have remained in the Gilbert family until at least 1954, possibly being rented out for a period shortly afterwards, and was acquired by the current owner — a relation of the Gilberts — in or shortly after 1989.

The house follows the fairly standard late Victorian and Edwardian suburban villa formula: a symmetrical rendered façade with canted bay windows and a shallow-pitched overhanging hipped roof, broadly Italianate in character. In contrast to many comparable buildings of its type, both the house and its garden are largely untouched. Together with the former threshing mill opposite, the large mill pond, and a neighbouring pair of older dwellings also connected to the mill, the property forms an attractive, historically interesting and locally important grouping.

Plan and general form

The house is L-shaped in plan with a two-storey rear return and a double-pitched hipped roof. A single-storey detached garage stands to the rear of the main house.

Front elevation (south-west)

The front elevation is symmetrical, arranged around a central doorway flanked by a two-storey canted bay on each side. At ground level there is a plain deep painted plaster plinth. The doorway has a flat segmental arched opening with a moulded keystone, archivolt and reveals. Set within this is a painted timber door screen comprising a four-panelled door, a glazed over-light with etched glass, and half-glazed side-lights. A mid-20th-century porch light is mounted above the doorway. The front door is reached via a set of concrete entrance steps spanning between the canted bays, with three curved treads. Each canted bay has three plain square-headed window openings at both ground and first floor levels, fitted with 1/1 sliding sash painted timber windows. A single window of similar style sits above the front door. There is a string course at floor level, plaster quoins at the corners, and plain painted masonry cills. The eaves consist of painted masonry corbels supporting a painted metal ogee gutter. The canted bay roofs are hipped and slated to match the main roof, with terracotta coxcomb ridge tiles and finials. Two tall chimneys are centrally positioned on the main ridge; these are plastered brick with projecting courses and terracotta pots.

Side elevation (south-east)

The south-east elevation is plainly detailed, with a single window at each floor level, positioned directly above one another toward the far right of the elevation. The windows match those on the front elevation. Wall and roof details are the same as the front. The rear return abuts the rear elevation of the main house close to the south-east corner. The south-east elevation of the return is roughly symmetrical, with two window openings at each floor level; the windows are generally similar to those on the main house but smaller, with the exception of one which appears to be full size. The eaves and roof of the return are detailed similarly to the main house, though the roof is not hipped.

Side elevation (north-west)

The north-west elevation features a two-storey canted bay on the left-hand side, matching the front bays, and is plain on the right with a single ground-floor window. Wall and roof details follow those of the front. The north-west elevation of the rear return is roughly symmetrical. At ground level in the centre is a projecting porch with a hipped roof, flanked on either side by square-headed window openings with 1/1 sliding sash windows. The porch has a window centrally placed on its north-west face and a painted timber boarded door on its south-west face. Two windows are centrally located at first floor level, similar to those at ground level. All windows on the return are smaller than those on the main house. The eaves and roof of the return are detailed similarly to the main house but are not hipped. The porch roof is hipped with painted timber brackets at eaves level supporting an ogee gutter. Rainwater goods are painted metal. A single chimney, similar in style to those on the main house, sits on the return ridge just off centre.

Enclosed yards

There is a small enclosed yard to the north-west of the rear return, abutting the main north-east elevation. It has a plastered brick boundary wall, quarry tile paving, and an original painted cast iron gate and gate posts.

Rear elevation (north-east)

The rear elevation has the two-storey return on the far left and is plainly detailed on the right, with a single window at each floor level closely abutting the return. These windows are similar in style to those on the return elevations and incorporate stained glass. Wall and roof details follow those of the front elevation. The north-east gable of the rear return has a single square-headed window opening at first floor level on the right-hand side, and a single centrally placed semi-circular arch-headed opening at attic level. The square-headed window matches others on the return. The arched window has a painted timber single-glazed frame with glazed over-light and double-opening casement. The gable eaves has a painted timber moulded bargeboard and soffit on brackets, with a terracotta finial at the apex. A modern fuel tank is mounted against the wall at ground level.

Detached outbuilding

The single-storey detached outbuilding to the rear of the main house has smooth ruled-and-lined render and a plain plaster plinth. The roof is double-pitched natural slate with painted timber brackets at the eaves supporting an ogee gutter, and a moulded bargeboard at the gable. On the south-west elevation there is a central window opening and two door openings, one on each side; all openings are square-headed, the doors being painted boarded timber and the window a 2/2 painted timber single-glazed sliding sash. A modern garage door occupies the north-west gable, and there is a circular ventilation opening at each gable apex fitted with an original metal grille. Ridge details match those of the main house. Rainwater goods are painted cast iron.

Gates and gate posts

Two matching sets of flat bar decorative cast metal gates with simple slim stone pillars capped with pyramidal tops are located at the middle of the northern garden boundary, leading to a lane, and from that lane to Aghalee Road, also to the north of the house. The main entrance is accessed via a short tarmacadam driveway entered directly off Aghalee Road at the bridge, through replacement cast metal gates with original cast iron gate posts. There is also an original painted cast iron gate on the north boundary with masonry posts.

Materials

Roof: natural slate with terracotta coxcomb ridge tiles and finials. Rainwater goods: cast metal, painted. Walls: painted smooth render, ruled and lined with quoins. Windows: generally 1/1 single-glazed sliding sash painted timber, with some stained glass to the rear windows.

Garden and Rocaille

The garden is a particular feature of the property. It is a mature landscaped site with lawned areas and some mature trees, bounded to the north and east by hedging and to the west by a low rubble stone wall with rough stone coping. The Goudy River runs to the south and a culvert known as Gilberts Bridge lies to the west at the boundary with Aghalee Road.

At the south-west corner of the garden, immediately south of the drive, is a collection of somewhat quirky, folly-like ornamental garden features — referred to as 'rocaille' — believed to have been built and assembled in stages between approximately the 1870s and around 1920. The current owner believes the features date from between around 1880 and 1920. They occupy an irregular plot of gently sloping ground approximately 17 metres by 11 metres, curved in a semi-circular fashion to the west. This plot is enclosed by low rubble walling and retaining walls, bounded on the east by trees, to the west by the road, and to the south by a pond that forms part of the larger mill dam belonging to the mill opposite.

The features have a naïve, small-scale folk-art quality, being made up of rocks of various sizes and some bricks arranged as small roughly circular enclosures, cemented together as pillars (in the manner of vernacular gate piers), a tiny grotto, turrets, and odd sections of walling interspersed with arches, steps and castellations, all built in rubble and polychrome brick.

The standout element in the collection stands on a rubble-built island within the pond. It consists of a small red brick hut with an attached yellow brick folly tower, which houses what was once a working shower — said to have been for the use of workers at the nearby mill, though it is no longer operative. The hut is entered via a tall narrow pointed arch doorway to the east. Inside, the bare interior contains a small changing area and the shower space itself, which has a stone tray and a small window with a decorative metal grille. The island is reached via a narrow rubble bridge whose single arch is dressed in brick.

It is thought that the rocaille may in part predate the house itself, having been commenced around the time of the creation of the threshing mill and mill dam on the other side of the road — that is, from the 1870s onwards. A smaller but similarly styled collection of ornamental garden features exists at Rockhouse, approximately 0.5 kilometres to the north-west, a property that belonged to relations of the Gilbert family in the later 19th and early 20th century.

Historical context

The bridge carrying Aghalee Road at this point is recorded as Gilberts Bridge on the Ordnance Survey map of 1832, and a Stephen Gilbert is recorded as living in the Aghagallon area in 1829, suggesting the family had been long established in the area before that date. A very long narrow building corresponding in part to the footprint of the present Nos. 24 and 26 Aghalee Road appears on the 1832 map, along with a shorter structure to the north-west that appears to correspond with a long shed still extant on the site. A Hertford estate map of 1833 shows a similar arrangement but also marks a lime kiln in the field on the south-east side of the road, in what is now the garden of Riverdale.

In the first valuation of 1834, the long block was recorded as two properties. The north-eastern portion was in the hands of Stephen Gilbert, described as a 'not new' thatched house graded 2B, measuring 26½ feet by 24½ by 17½ feet with a section of 16½ by 22 by 17½ feet, thatched offices of 29 by 21½ by 7 feet and 77½ by 17 by 6 feet, the whole rated at £5-15-6. The south-western dwelling, belonging to Johnathan Gilbert, comprised a thatched section of 28 by 24½ by 18½ feet with a slated portion of 11½ by 21 by 7 feet and 24½ by 21 by 6 feet; offices of 13 by 21 by 7 feet (slated), 24½ by 18½ by 7 feet, 35 by 21½ by 7 feet, a stable and coach house of 30 by 19 by 7½ feet (all thatched), and slated fowl houses of 48 by 9 by 6 feet and 36 by 16 by 6 feet, rated at £6-7-0. This valuation makes clear that most structures on the site in 1834 had been standing for several decades and may in part have been built in the 18th century.

Taylor and Skinner's road map of 1777 depicts structures along the roadside in the general Aghagallon area, though all are shown to the south of the stream, with no clear evidence of buildings in this immediate vicinity. On the revised Ordnance Survey map of 1857, an L-shaped return is shown to the rear of the south-western house, with a similar-shaped freestanding structure to the south that appears to correspond with much of the present mill building.

In the second valuation of around 1860, the north-eastern house — still in the hands of Stephen Gilbert — is recorded much as before: 26 by 24 by 17 feet and 16 by 22 by 17 feet, with offices of 29 by 21 by 7 feet, 77 by 17 by 6 feet, 32 by 18 by 8 feet, and 18 by 12 by 6 feet (the last two slated). The south-western dwelling, which had passed to James Gilbert following the death of Johnathan in 1853, is also recorded similarly: 28 by 24 by 18 feet and 11 by 21 by 6 feet, with offices broadly unchanged, plus an additional thatched structure of 35 by 21 by 7 feet that may correspond to the rear return shown on the 1857 map.

By 1872 the rateable value of the south-western property had risen from £7-10-0 to £15-10-0 and a threshing mill is mentioned for the first time in the records; the value rose again to £20 in 1878 before dropping to £14 the following year, indicating that substantial construction work was carried out to the mill structures around this time. In 1899 the rateable value of No. 26 increased slightly due to the construction of a new shed.

On the Ordnance Survey map of 1900, approximately half of the present mill dam appears, along with much of the mill complex. Just south of the dam, fronting the roadside, was a small dwelling, and across the road stood a hall — Union Hall — built around 1880 and used as a school from 1882. The site is captioned 'Laganville' on this map, though later evidence indicates that name was applied solely to No. 26.

In 1911 Jonathan Gilbert built Riverdale on the north side of the stream, which became the main family residence. The Gilberts are believed to have retained the whole site until shortly before 1925, when No. 26 — Laganville — was sold to James Mulholland. Around this time both Nos. 24 and 26 were damaged by fire and, according to a 1954 newspaper account, subsequently rebuilt. Substantial work was carried out to both properties, with much of No. 24 demolished and what remained remodelled. The Gilberts continued to live at Riverdale until at least 1954, with a mill employee occupying the much-reduced No. 24 up to the same date. Shortly afterwards the mill ceased working and much of the site was left idle until 1989, when Riverdale, No. 24, and the mill buildings were acquired by a relation of the former owners, who has since restored much of the complex. The road bridge was rebuilt in the 1990s and Union Hall was demolished in the same decade.