Cullycapple House, 19 Cullycapple Road, Aghadowey, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51 4AR

Cullycapple House is an asymmetrical four-bay, two-storey-over-partially-exposed-basement, double-pile country house with outbuildings and gate screen, built around 1840 and extended around 1905. It stands on the south side of Cullycapple Road in Aghadowey, south of Coleraine. It is a fine example of a middle-sized early Victorian country house and is of local interest, notable in particular as the summer home of Robert Flint, the Scottish philosopher and theologian.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The house has a rectangular plan with a single-storey projecting porch to the front. A former two-storey dairy, added around 1905, forms a return to the rear and has since been incorporated into the main house. The roof is pitched natural slate with angled ridge tiles and rendered chimneystacks carrying three tall clay pots each. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods run along moulded eaves. External walls are finished in ruled-and-lined render on a contrasting plinth with vermiculated raised quoins; the basement is finished in painted smooth render and the rear elevation in pebbledash.

Windows throughout are timber sash: 3/6 panes to the first floor and 6/6 to the ground floor, all with exposed boxes and set in moulded architraves with projecting painted sills. Fixed six-paned timber windows with projecting painted sills serve the basement; the rear elevation has replacement timber sash windows.

The principal (east) elevation is five openings wide at each floor, with the central openings more closely grouped. To the left of centre at ground floor level, a flat-roofed projecting porch with a moulded cornice is accessed by two stone steps on the front face and three steps on the north side. The porch contains a bolection-moulded six-panel timber door with raised-and-fielded decorative panels to the lower section and a cast-iron hand-and-wreath knocker. It is flanked by four fluted pilasters and two-paned sidelights, and surmounted by a three-light transom, all set within a moulded architrave. The right cheek of the porch has a 6/6 timber sash window in a moulded architrave with a projecting painted sill; the left cheek has a blank window detailed to match.

The south elevation comprises two gables with an exposed basement enclosed by a rendered plinth wall topped by modern cast-iron railings. The wider right gable has a 6/3 window to the first floor right, a smaller timber casement window to the first floor left, and a 6/6 window to the left of centre at ground floor, along with two windows to the basement. The left gable has two 6/3 windows to the first floor above a bipartite 6/6 window at the centre of the ground floor.

The west (rear) elevation is abutted on the left by a single-storey link connecting to the two-storey former dairy of around 1905. Three windows are grouped at the centre of the first floor. At ground floor, left of centre, there is a replacement two-panelled-and-glazed timber door with a transom light and square terracotta tiles to the entrance threshold, together with a metal boot-scraper. The door is flanked by a window on each side, with a further 6/6 window to the right. The return of around 1905 has a hipped slate roof with terracotta ridges and hips; a replacement panelled-and-glazed timber door with square tiles to the entrance is set in the corner wall at the south-west. The south elevation of this return has a variety of fixed and timber sash windows; the north elevation has two 6/6 timber sash windows.

The north elevation has two windows at both first floor and ground floor to each gable.

GATE SCREEN AND SETTING

The house sits on a mature site and is approached from Cullycapple Road through curved rendered entrance walls with saddleback coping that terminate in two square piers. The piers have painted caps topped by ball finials and carry replacement cast-iron gates. A tree-lined avenue leads to a gravel concourse at the front of the house. To the north, an elliptical-headed arch gives access to a pebbled rear yard.

OUTBUILDINGS

The rear yard is enclosed by a variety of pebbledash outbuildings. To the north of the entrance stands a two-storey pebbledash coach house with a hipped roof having blue-black angled tiles to ridges and hips and a metal weathervane at the apex. At first floor level there are two timber-sheeted loading doors and a six-paned fixed timber window. At the centre of the ground floor is an elliptical-headed carriage arch containing timber-sheeted doors with modern metal hinges. The rear elevation of the coach house is abutted on the left by the stable block; at first floor it has a timber-sheeted loading door and a five-paned oculus, and at ground floor a six-paned fixed timber window.

To the west side of the yard is a symmetrical two-storey stable block. On the front elevation, two six-paned fixed timber windows with projecting painted sills flank an original half-glazed timber door surmounted by a two-paned transom light, all set within a deep cement-rendered recess. The north gable has a half timber-sheeted door in a deep cement-rendered reveal. The stable block to the west is set on a slight slope and retains its original natural slate roof and timber-sheeted half-doors. Modern stable buildings and large agricultural sheds stand to the south.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Cullycapple House is a linen mansion dating from around 1840 and first appears, captioned, on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1849–53, which already shows two outbuildings to the rear, one of which appears to survive today. By the time of the third edition map of 1904–05, the house had been extended to the rear and further outbuildings added, some of which remain.

Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 records the occupier as George Barklie, leasing the house from the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers. The house and outbuildings were valued at £22 and stood on a plot of over sixteen acres. By 1866 the property had passed to Thomas Barklie and Co. The Barklie family had owned a number of bleach greens in the Aghadowey area from the early nineteenth century; George and his son Thomas are particularly associated with Mullamore bleach green in the townland of Mullaghinch, situated directly opposite Cullycapple House and shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1831–32. Thomas Barklie expanded his linen business in partnership with William Spotten of Belfast, but a slump followed and Mullamore fell vacant for many years.

Cullycapple House was taken over by Thomas A. Marks in 1885 and subsequently by David Innes in 1889, who became the owner in fee when the mansion house and bleach works were sold at auction in 1890, as reported in the Belfast Newsletter. In the early 1890s the house served as a summer home for Robert Flint, the Scottish philosopher and theologian. Flint published works on the philosophy of history but is best known for his theological writings arguing for the existence of God, as recorded in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and D. Macmillan's Life of Robert Flint (1914).

By the time of the 1901 census, Cullycapple House was the home of farmer John Marshall, his mother, and his sister. The family employed a live-in domestic servant. The thirteen-room house was designated first class. In 1926 the house passed to William Wilson, and then to Marshall Wilson in 1948.

Revaluation records from the 1930s, at which point the house was valued at £23, describe the ground-floor accommodation as comprising four reception rooms, a kitchen, scullery, pantry, milkhouse, bathroom, and WC, and the first floor as having eight bedrooms, a boxroom, a storeroom, and two servants' bedrooms accessed by a separate stairway. The valuer noted that the house was well built but badly planned, with too many corridors. There was no mains water supply; a hand pump delivered water to a tank and the family relied on rainwater for the remainder of their needs. An associated plan shows the double-pile house alongside a range of outbuildings to the rear including a stable with lofts over, a byre, a boiling house, a cart shed with lofts over, and a cattle shed.

The building was listed in 1977 but was unoccupied for some time and fell into poor repair. It was renovated in the 1990s, with further external works carried out around 2008.