31 Church Square, Kilrea, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51 5QU

31 Church Square, Kilrea, is a detached, asymmetrical, single-storey-with-attic former estate office and medical dispensary, built between 1843 and 1849 to designs by the English architect William Barnes. It occupies a prominent corner site on the west side of Church Street at the southern end of Kilrea, on a somewhat elevated plot. The building is of considerable historical, architectural, and social interest to the local community.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The building has a roughly cross-shaped plan, with a lower long axis intersecting a higher section that runs perpendicular to it, gabled to the north, east, and west. Roofs are steeply pitched slate and partially artificial slate, with angled black and grey ridge tiles and decorative timber bargeboards to the gable ends. Rainwater goods are generally ogee-section cast iron with rounded downpipes, though some sections have been replaced in uPVC; decorative cast-iron hoppers are present on the north-west extension. There is a tall two-stage chimney in the north-west re-entrant angle of the main building, with a rendered base, a second stage in brick, and a single octagonal clay pot; a second chimney serves the north-west extension.

The walls are built in coursed and squared basalt with sandstone quoins and dressings. Windows are generally mullioned with decorative geometric glazing bars, projecting stone sills, sandstone lintels, and stepped surrounds. The principal elevation faces east. To the right is an advancing gable containing a central transomed and mullioned canted bay window, with a similar rectangular window at attic level and a further similar window to the right side of the long axis. The central entrance is a square-headed doorway with plain glass sidelights and a transom. A flat-roofed canopy supported on painted columns with lozenge brackets extends southward over the left-side window.

The south elevation has a central casement window to the attic and a former central doorway, now replaced by a full-height mullioned window with a glass transom above. The west elevation has a window and a timber-sheeted sliding door to the painted mono-pitched extension that abuts the south-east re-entrant angle, with a dormer insertion over. The north elevation has a plain transomed and mullioned window to the left, reaching ground floor level and possibly a former doorway, and a similar narrow window to the left cheek of the advancing north gable. The north gable has a casement window to each side of a corbelled chimney-breast (the chimney itself has been removed) at attic level, above a square-headed mullioned window, with a plain timber sash to the right.

LATER ADDITIONS

Several additions dating from the mid to late 20th century have been made to the building. These include a single-storey mono-pitched extension abutting to the west of the long axis; a flat-roofed, partially glazed timber porch to the eastern side; and a double-pitched, gable-ended two-storey extension abutting the west gable, with a further single-storey flat-roofed addition abutting to the north. The two-storey and flat-roofed extensions to the north-west are finished in roughcast rendering and are lit by uPVC windows throughout, with a replacement door to the northernmost addition. Despite these alterations, the architectural character of the building as seen from the main street has been retained.

SETTING

The building sits on a corner site, bounded on Church Street by a curved dwarf wall of squared and coursed stone with stone copings and metal railings featuring a lozenge motif, with two similar metal gates supported on pairs of square piers with angled copings. These boundary walls and gates contribute positively to the setting and are integral to the overall appearance of the former estate office. To the south stands St Patrick's Church, and a coursed rubble wall to the north separates the site from the graveyard of First Kilrea Presbyterian Church. A single-storey pitched and artificially re-slated outbuilding of rubble construction bounds the south-west side, with a timber canopy to the north and a large sandstone pier to the south-east; a timber-sheeted gate abuts the south-west corner of the house, enclosing the rear yard. The west boundary is formed by a single-storey lime-rendered wall. Modern flagstones surround the perimeter of the house.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The building was constructed as the estate office and medical dispensary of the Worshipful Company of Mercers, one of the principal Livery Companies of the City of London. During the Plantation of Ulster, the Mercers' Company directly controlled a proportion of land within County Londonderry amounting to approximately 33.5 square miles, centred on the district of Kilrea and Movanagher. By the mid-17th century the estate had been let to nominated individuals, many of whom were absentee landlords, and it fell into severe decline. On the death of the final tenant, Alexander Stewart, in 1831, the Mercers' Company took back direct control. Kilrea became the capital of the proportion, and in the decades that followed the Company undertook an ambitious programme of improvements to raise productivity, general welfare, and the appearance of the estate, with particular focus on Kilrea town. Architects to the Company — George Smith and subsequently William Barnes — generated a cohesive design plan for the development of the town, with public buildings largely funded by the Company.

A dispensary had been established by the Mercers' Company for the benefit of the poor as early as 1832, open between 9 and 11 in the morning on weekdays except Wednesdays. Prior to the construction of this building, both the dispensary and the agent's rent office had been accommodated within the Mercers Hotel in the Diamond, where an office had been fitted up in a temporary manner for these purposes. The building at Church Street was designed to act as a key feature within the town, presenting the estate office as a place of significance and distinction.

William Barnes, who designed the building, was a pupil and partner of George Smith and served as architect to the Mercers' Company. He was responsible for a number of public buildings in Kilrea, including the adjacent St Patrick's Church and Kilrea First Presbyterian Church.

The building is first shown on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1853 on its corner site, with a large flax market built around a quadrangle located directly to the rear. In Griffith's Valuation of 1856, the total rental value of the rent offices, dispensary, and yard was recorded at £15, rising to £16 by 1869 following the addition of a new office.

The Mercers' Company continued to manage the estate until it was sold to the tenants under the Wyndham Land Purchase Act of 1903. The Annual Revisions show that by 1910 the building had been purchased and occupied as a residence by linen merchant Mark (O') Reilly and his family. By 1935 the flax market to the rear had been replaced by a series of motor houses. The Annual Revisions for the period 1956 to 1972 record that the house had become dilapidated. It has since been repaired and continues in use as a house.