Ballintemple House, 40 Churchtown Road, Garvagh, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51 5BE

Ballintemple House is a well-preserved, asymmetrical three-bay two-storey detached country house built around 1840, incorporating an earlier single-storey dwelling dating from 1795, and possibly incorporating fabric from an even earlier hunting lodge that may date to the 1770s. It stands on a large, mature, wooded site on the south side of Churchtown Road, approached by two gravel drives, with a variety of outbuildings forming an informal yard to the rear. The house has remained in continuous family ownership and retains much of its original character, with architectural detailing largely intact. In the late 1990s the Northern Ireland Environment Agency considered it one of the finest Georgian houses in County Londonderry.

Plan and Exterior

The house follows an east-facing inverted T-plan. A single-storey extension with a bowed front projects to the south. A perpendicular gabled block rises to the rear, abutted to the north by a one-and-a-half-storey servants' wing. The original single-storey dwelling of 1795 forms a return to the rear, and there is also a single-storey lean-to extension with a porch, also to the rear.

The roof is pitched natural slate with angled ridge tiles, rendered chimneystacks, and bargeboards to the gables. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods are carried on bracketed eaves. The walling is roughcast render, with ruled-and-lined render to the rear gable.

Windows are timber sash without horns — 6/3 glazing to the first floor and 6/6 to the ground floor — set in painted smooth-rendered surrounds with projecting painted sills unless otherwise noted.

Principal Elevation (East-Facing)

The principal elevation is five openings wide at each floor. The off-centre doorcase has an elliptical head in a moulded surround and comprises an original wide timber door with beaded muntin and four vertical panels, fitted with cast-iron door furniture. The door is flanked by panelled jambs and margin-paned sidelights, and surmounted by an original timber fanlight with decorative vertical glazing bars. Three sandstone steps lead up to the door.

South Gable and Extension

The south gable has a 6/6 window at first-floor left. At ground-floor level it is abutted by the single-storey extension, which has a hipped roof with leaded ridges and hips. The bowed east-facing front of this extension is two windows wide. A replacement timber conservatory abuts it to the south and west.

West (Rear) Elevation

The rear elevation has a central gabled bay, abutted to the north by the two-storey gabled block and to the south by the original single-storey dwelling of 1795. The gable has two round-headed 2/2 windows with horizontal glazing bars at first-floor level and a diminutive timber casement window at ground floor. The original single-storey dwelling, on its south elevation, has two 6/6 windows with horns flanking a half-glazed timber door, and a timber casement window to the left of the west gable. The gabled block to the left has two 1/1 windows at first floor, abutted at ground floor by the single-storey lean-to extension, which has a 12/12 window with horns and a diminutive timber casement window. The porch on the north cheek of the lean-to has a replacement timber casement window.

North Elevation

The north gable has two 4/4 windows at first-floor left and an 8/8 window at ground-floor left, abutted to the right by the one-and-a-half-storey servants' wing. The servants' wing has two 2/2 windows to the attic and a 2/2 window to the ground floor at the gable, with three 2/2 windows at ground-floor level on its east elevation. The main north elevation also has a diminutive four-light fixed window at first-floor left and a 6/6 window at first-floor right.

Outbuildings and Setting

The house sits within large, mature grounds, with gravelled entrances to the northeast and northwest leading to an informal rear yard. The yard is accessed from the north side of the house through a pair of circular pebbledash piers with pointed caps, and is laid with concrete. A variety of single- and two-storey pebbledash outbuildings surround the yard, the most notable being a fine two-storey coach house to the west. The coach house has a slate roof, a pebbledash chimneystack with a tall clay pot, and a bell-cote with bell to the south gable. Timber casement windows and timber-sheeted doors are used throughout. The stable at ground-floor left of the coach house retains its original stone sett floor together with traditional timber stalls and fittings. The lawned garden to the east contains a variety of mature trees and is bounded by a mature hedgerow.

Historical Background

The origins of the house appear to pre-date the 1795 dwelling recorded in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs. The present owners state that the site was originally a hunting lodge built for the Earl Bishop of Derry, possibly as early as the 1770s, and it is suggested that the single-storey thatched cottage built in 1795 by Rowley Heyland of Glenoak, County Tyrone, may have been a remodelling of that earlier structure. What are now the oldest parts of the house are the elements corresponding to this earliest phase. The bow-fronted section and the lower storey of the adjacent part of the building are also thought to be early, and both features appear on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832 and are described in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs.

By the time of the first edition OS map of 1832, the house was shown as rectangular on plan with an extended return and a group of outbuildings to the rear. The second edition of 1849–53 shows the plan considerably altered and the building captioned as Ballintemple House, indicating that it had by then been raised in height and further extended, though the original hunting lodge return had been reduced in length. The plan form of around 1840 has been largely preserved to the present day, with only minor subsequent alterations.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of the 1830s record that the house was at that time the residence of Mrs Heyland, widow of Major Arthur Rowley Heyland. The Memoirs describe the cottage as "partly half-circle, thatched and standing one storey," with a large attached range to the back that was also thatched and rose to two storeys in part. The property was said to stand "on an eminence over a large glen and river" and to command "a delightful prospect of the neighbouring hills," with a good fruit and vegetable garden enclosed by a quickset hedge, a demesne of about 30 acres enclosed with quickset hedges and iron gates, and plantations of various kinds of forest trees. The Townland Valuation of 1828–40 valued the property at £11 18s.

Major Arthur Rowley Heyland had a distinguished military career, fighting in the Peninsular Wars under Sir Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, before being killed at the Battle of Waterloo. A letter he wrote to his wife Mary on the eve of the battle, expressing his expectation of death and his love for her and their children, has survived. His memorial is at St Patrick's Church, Coleraine.

By the time of Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64, the house had passed to the Reverend Mitchell Smyth, rector of Errigal parish, who leased it from the Lord Bishop of Derry and Raphoe. It was then valued at £25 and situated on a plot of over 48 acres. Reverend Smyth became the owner in fee in 1873, and the house passed to Arthur C. Smyth in 1896. The 1901 census records Smyth, a Justice of the Peace and retired major in the Royal Marines, living there with his wife, four daughters, and three live-in servants: a nurse for the younger children, a parlour maid, and a cook.

In 1924 the house returned to the Heyland family, occupied first by Dominick Heyland, a retired major in the Indian Army, and then by Clara Heyland until 1940. The First General Revaluation of the 1930s records extensive accommodation: on the ground floor, two kitchens, two pantries, a scullery, a larder, a dining room, a drawing room, a library, a study, a bathroom, and a WC; on the first floor, five bedrooms, a bathroom and WC, a linen cupboard, two maids' rooms, and two small bedrooms. The valuer noted that the culinary department was very well fitted, that water was laid on to the main rooms with hot and cold to the baths, and that electric light was supplied from a private dynamo, with sewage to a cesspool. The Heylands were running a farming business and the outbuildings, some of them newly built, were described by the valuer as "remarkable for construction and finish." The lawns and garden were well kept and the property was characterised as a "typical gentleman farmer's residence."

The house was listed in 1977, and repairs and renovations were carried out during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, including the rebuilding of the conservatory.