Bovagh House, 79 Mullaghinch Road, Coleraine, Co Londonderry, BT51 4AU

Bovagh House

Bovagh House is a substantial Georgian mansion of early 18th-century appearance, set on a secluded site to the north side of Mullaghinch Road, Aghadowey. The house is of considerable historical depth: although its current form reads as a symmetrical mid-Georgian composition, it almost certainly incorporates earlier masonry and possibly 17th-century fabric, and the site itself may go back to the Plantation period. The listing covers the house together with its gatescreen, gateposts and bridge.

Architecture and Exterior

The house is two storeys with an attic and a concealed basement, rectangular on plan with a two-storey return to the rear. It is symmetrical about a full-height gabled central breakfront on the principal south-east-facing elevation. The roof is hipped natural slate with a valley, leaded hips and ridges; modern rooflights and zinc-lined dormers have been added. Two rendered chimneystacks with moulded caps and four clay pots each run along the longitudinal party wall, with a reconstructed redbrick stack to the return. Half-round cast iron rainwater goods are fitted over projecting stepped stone eaves to the front; a torus-moulded rendered eaves course runs along the other elevations. Walling throughout is smooth lime render with a raised plinth and stepped quoins.

Windows are reconditioned six-over-six timber sashes without horns, set in moulded architraves with projecting masonry cills; most are replacements, with some original cills surviving.

The central breakfront of the principal elevation contains the main entrance: a wide elliptical-headed opening with an original six-panelled door flanked by eight-pane sidelights, surmounted by a radial fanlight, and the whole embraced by a moulded architrave. Above this is a Serliana window, and above that a Diocletian window lighting the attic — both were unglazed at the time of survey. Two windows to each floor flank the breakfront on either side.

The south-west elevation has irregular fenestration: three camber-headed windows to the first floor (the rightmost with its cill at a higher level than the others), a sash window to the ground floor right, and a round-headed opening without glazing to the left of centre at ground floor level. A conservatory extension was under construction at ground floor left at the time of survey.

The rear elevation is abutted on the right by a lower two-storey return, flush with the south-west elevation and extended by a single-storey former outbuilding now partially incorporated into the house. This return has a dormer with a flat zinc roof breaking the eaves of the south-west elevation. The north-west end is blank. The exposed central bay has round-headed openings lighting the stairwell at each half-landing level, alongside a variety of other openings including a Gothic arched sash to the first floor left, and dormers at attic level. The north-east elevation has two windows grouped to the left at ground floor with one window above, and a single opening to each floor on the right side.

Interior

The house was undergoing restoration at the time of survey, and much of the building fabric was exposed as a result. The front elevation is of brick, but behind this Georgian facade are thicker masonry walls, consistent with an earlier structure beneath. The roof timbers appear to have been reused and rearranged, suggesting changes over the building's long history. By the 1830s, the original stone walls of the castle had been covered with plaster, and early vaults were still present within the building at that time, though these no longer survive.

Historical Background

The site is one of considerable antiquity. According to historical research drawing on the Ordnance Survey Memoirs and the work of the Reverend T H Mullin, Bovagh was the principal dwelling on the Waterford estates in Aghadowey. At the time of the Plantation, the land was a freehold granted to Manus McCowy Ballagh O'Cahan, a descendant of the Gaelic chieftains of the area. The O'Cahan family are said to have built a castle or fortified house on the site. The last of the O'Cahans sold the castle to Sir Tristram Beresford (died 1673), who represented Londonderry in the Irish House of Commons three times between 1634 and 1666. Beresford is said to have purchased it for "a horse, a fine suit of clothes and a trifling sum of money," and by the 1830s the memory of the O'Cahan who sold it "was still cursed for the transaction."

Sir Marcus Beresford, first Earl of Tyrone (1694–1763) — Sir Tristram's only son — was Member of Parliament for Coleraine from 1715 to 1720 and is recorded as having kept several members of Coleraine Corporation imprisoned at the house for days before the election of 1727, bringing them into Coleraine under armed guard on polling day to ensure their vote. The Beresfords subsequently resided elsewhere, letting the house to a succession of tenants. From around 1750 the tenant was Donald Osal O'Cahan, a descendant of the original family, who occupied it rent-free on condition he kept it in repair. He and his son John gained reputations as attorneys, and Donald constructed a road through the grounds by accepting his poorer clients' labour in lieu of fees — a project that nonetheless took twenty years to complete. After the O'Cahans left, all the old oak is said to have been removed from the house by two tradesmen employed to carry out alterations, named Priestly and Wadd. It may have been at this period that the new Georgian brick elevation was added.

The next recorded occupier was the Reverend Mr Barnard, Prebendary of Aghadowey parish (1763–1787), who lived at the castle before the construction of the glebe house. He was followed by Langford Heyland Esquire, who made improvements in the late 18th century. During the rebellion of 1798 the house was used as a military post "to overawe the surrounding country." Edward Macnaghten Esquire lived at Bovagh in 1802, followed by John Smith and Robert Brown as caretakers for the Beresfords; over fifteen years of caretaker occupation the house became dilapidated. Robert Hezlet Esquire found it nearly a ruin when he took it over, making extensive alterations and repairs without demolishing any part.

The house and offices were listed in the Townland Valuation of 1828–40 at £8 16 shillings, with Robert Hezlet recorded as occupier. By the time of Griffith's Valuation (1856–64) the valuation had risen to £23, and a gatelodge on the holding was also noted. The house stood in a plot of over 67 acres. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1831–32 shows the house, uncaptioned, occupying much the same roughly square plan form as today, with a porch to the front elevation and an outbuilding to the rear (subsequently rebuilt around 1860). It is named "Bovagh Ho[use]" on the second edition of 1849–53.

The house passed through the Hezlet family for many years, though it was vacant at the time of both the 1901 and 1911 censuses. The Hezlets were a distinguished military family. Richard J Hezlet, who occupied the house from 1888, rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Major General Robert Knox Hezlet, recorded as occupier from 1941, served as Director of Artillery at the War Office (1930–34) and then in India (1934–38). At the time of the First General Revaluation in the 1930s, the ground floor accommodation comprised three reception rooms, a kitchen, two pantries and a scullery; the first floor had four bedrooms, two dressing rooms, a bathroom, a water closet and four servants' bedrooms. There was no electric light or gas; the house was lit by oil lamps and heated by grate fires, with water supplied from a roof tank and a hand pump.

Major General Hezlet's son, Sir Arthur Richard Hezlet, born in 1914 while his father was serving in South Africa, became the Royal Navy's youngest captain and youngest rear admiral, and was a dedicated advocate of the submarine as an instrument of naval strategy. In later life he became a military historian, his publications including a history of the 'B' Specials. After inheriting Bovagh House he became a prominent local figure, serving on the General Synod of the Church of Ireland and as President of the Royal British Legion for twenty-five years. He died at Bovagh House in 2007.

Setting and Outbuildings

The house occupies a secluded site, accessed from Mullaghinch Road via a long sweeping lane from the south-west, marked by simple rubble stone piers without gates. The original south entrance is now disused and unmarked. The area immediately surrounding the house is screened by mature trees, with overgrown lawns to the front. The wider setting consists of extensive pasture and farmland. The listing includes the gatescreen, gateposts and bridge as part of the listed extent. The house is much enhanced by an attractively detailed range of outbuildings representative of a variety of functions associated with a prosperous farmstead of the 18th and 19th centuries.