The Irish Society, 54-56 Castleroe Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51 3RL

The Irish Society House, 54–56 Castleroe Road, Coleraine

This is a detached, symmetrical two-storey, three-bay rendered Georgian-style house, built or remodelled around 1859 to designs by Stewart Gordon, who served as Surveyor for the County of Londonderry from 1834 to 1860 and prepared various designs for buildings on the Irish Society's estates. The building is L-shaped on plan, with the main gabled block accompanied by a two-storey return abutting the south side of the western elevation. It stands on the western bank of the River Bann, to the south-west of Coleraine town, on a promontory projecting into the river — a prominent position that gives the house commanding views along the water and makes it a significant visual focal point in the surrounding area.

The building is characterised by balanced and elegant proportioning, with plain detailing achieved through the restrained use of simple classical devices. The roof is pitched and re-slated, with terracotta ridge tiles and reconstructed roughcast and painted chimneys rising from the gables, each carrying pairs of replacement cement pots. Rainwater goods are replacement ogee-profile metal, fixed to a projecting rendered eaves course. The external walls are roughcast and painted; the roughcast does not reveal the rubble stonework beneath, unlike the previous whitened walling finish.

Window openings are square-headed with painted projecting stone sills and plain smooth-rendered and painted reveals and architraves. Windows throughout the main building are generally replacement horned timber sashes glazed 6/6, with 6/3 sashes to the rear return unless otherwise noted. Doors are painted timber-sheeted in plain square openings unless otherwise described.

The principal elevation faces west and is symmetrically arranged with three bays. At its centre is a large round-arched door opening containing a squared double-leaf six-panelled timber door with plain glass sidelights and timber panels below. Above this is a restored fanlight with glazing bars forming an umbrella motif, all enclosed within a plain rendered and painted round-arched architrave. The ground-floor windows flanking the door are tripartite, with painted timber mullions and narrow 2/2 sashes on each side.

The north elevation has two windows at first-floor level. The east elevation — which faces inward and is described here as the west elevation of the return — is irregular in arrangement. It has a tall narrow stair window at centre set in a slightly camber-headed architrave, and two windows to the right, the first-floor one being multi-paned with narrow margin lights in an early 19th-century style. The gabled return abuts to the right and has a pair of 2/2 windows at attic level. At ground-floor level there is a mono-pitched slate roof abutment containing a door at centre and a four-pane timber casement to the right cheek. The return itself has three 6/3 windows and a door to the right cheek, and two similar windows on the left cheek. The south elevation has one window at each floor level on the far right side, the ground-floor window having a replacement cement sill.

Setting and Site

The house sits to the east of Castleroe Road in a mature setting on the west bank of the River Bann, south of Coleraine town, and is sited directly on a promontory overlooking the historic area known as The Cutts — a point where the water level drops significantly. The Cutts were formed when cuts were made through a natural basalt slab across the River Bann in the 17th century to allow timber to be floated down to Coleraine; they were quickly adapted as fish traps. Since the 1990s, the licences of local salmon fishermen have been purchased by the North Atlantic Salmon Fund and the fishery is no longer in operation.

The river side is bounded by rubble stone walls with stepped areas leading to mooring points. To the rear there is a paved yard and grass area containing a concrete boating ramp. Boundary walls along the main road combine rubble stonework with roughcast rendered and painted sections. Access to the site is through two large roughcast and painted capped and squared pillars supporting replacement metal gates, with a bifurcated bitumen path encircling a planted lawn. Two other contemporary buildings are located within the enclosed site, to the south-west and south-east.

History

A building is shown on this site on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830, but the present house is understood to have been built or remodelled in 1859. At the time of Griffith's Valuation (1856–64), the house and offices were unoccupied but were owned by Robert Allen and valued at £14. The house was then briefly leased by Joseph McCurdy of nearby Castleroe, an ironmonger with premises in the Waterside (as recorded in the 1843 street directory), but McCurdy tragically drowned in 1860 while attempting to save an elderly aunt who had jumped from a boat as it approached The Cutts; his wife and Scottish visitors were also aboard (Morning Chronicle, 4th September 1860). The house passed to John McCombie in 1867 and then to William Craig in 1885. Craig was conservator for the Coleraine district of fisheries (Belfast Newsletter, 16th October 1900), and by the 1901 census his son had taken over the house and associated farm. The family employed two farm servants and a cook; the eight-room house was classified as first class.

By 1911 the house was occupied by Maxwell Given, architect and civil engineer, who served as town surveyor for Portrush Urban District Council and superintendent for the Lower Bann Navigation Trustees. Given leased the house from the Foyle and Bann Fishery Company, which had acquired the building in 1904. Valuer's notes from the 1930s record a plan showing the main dwelling with rear return and outhouses including a coal shed, washhouse, potting shed and ashpit. The ground floor comprised two reception rooms, a kitchen, two pantries and a scullery; the first floor contained a study, three bedrooms, a bathroom and a WC; and the second floor had two maids' bedrooms. Water was supplied to the house by a force pump, though drinking water had to be carried from a neighbour, and the house was lit by oil lamps.

The house was taken over by The Honourable the Irish Society in 1952 and is presently their local headquarters. Following its listing in 1977, improvements and alterations were made in the 1980s, and around 1990 extensive restoration was carried out by the Irish Society. This stretch of the Bann was, in the mid-19th century, dotted with the substantial dwelling houses of the well-to-do, and Cutts House is shown on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1904 in the vicinity of several other residences set in spacious grounds. The house represents a relatively rare surviving example of aspirational early 19th-century architecture in this part of County Londonderry.