Gatescreen, Little Agherton, 20 Agherton Road, Portstewart, Co. Londonderry, BT55 7PH

Gatescreen at Little Agherton

A nineteenth-century sandstone boundary wall and cast-iron gate screen situated on the north side of Agherton Road at the entrance to what was once Little Agherton, a Victorian house demolished around 1990.

The boundary wall is constructed from uncoursed squared grey stone with mortar and is topped with dressed stones. Square piers support a cast-iron gate screen with gates set to the centre. The gates and screen feature stylised fleur-de-lis on husks at the heads of the railings, which are supported on round cast-iron piers. The railings are painted black, with the fleur-de-lis heads painted gold.

The site is set back from the main road with a lawned verge to the front and a cattle grid leading to a gravel entrance. A modern two-storey rendered house has been built on the site of the Victorian dwelling.

Historical context

Little Agherton, a two-storey dwelling erected in 1871, was demolished in the late twentieth century. The gate screen and walling are now the only remaining trace of the original dwelling that fronts Agherton Road.

The site has an earlier history. According to the Ordnance Survey Memoirs, the first building erected here was a schoolhouse, two storeys in height, built from the Erasmus Smith's Fund in 1813 at a cost of £300. The rubble stone walling may originate from this period, as evidenced by a square boundary depicted around the Erasmus School on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830, though no documentary evidence confirms this dating. The schoolhouse was valued at £3 14 shillings in the contemporary Townland Valuations and had increased to £4 10 shillings by Griffith's Valuation of 1857, at which value it remained until the schoolhouse was demolished in 1871.

The Victorian dwelling was then constructed on the site and valued at £18 15 shillings. It is likely that the cast-iron gate screen, which dates from the mid-Victorian period, was erected at the same time as this dwelling. The Victorian house stood until the late twentieth century, appearing on the First Survey of 1973, and was demolished sometime after this date.

The gate screen and rubble stone walling were listed in 1977 alongside the Victorian dwelling. The house was delisted in 1990 due to structural concerns following consultation with the Heritage and Buildings Consultancy and Coleraine Council. The gate screen was retained on the list at that time and has since been delisted.