Gortin House, 65 Ballygawley Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51 4DT

Gortin House is a symmetrical, three-bay, two-storey detached red brick farmhouse built around 1850, situated on mature grounds to the south side of Ballygawley Road, south of Coleraine, in the townland of Gortin Mayoghill. It is a well-proportioned and well-preserved example of a mid-19th century farmhouse, and is considered to reflect the aspirations of prosperous mid-19th century farmers to emulate the more formal dwellings of the landed gentry, illustrating the wealth generated by the farming industry in this area during the period.

PLAN AND FORM

The house is rectangular in plan, with a single-storey projecting porch to the front and single-storey canted bay windows to the east and west sides. To the rear there is a shallow two-storey extension and an original two-storey return, the latter abutted by a modern lean-to porch extension dating from around 1980.

EXTERIOR

The roof is hipped and clad in natural slate, with rounded tiles to the hips and ridges, and two rendered chimneystacks positioned centrally. Rainwater goods are plastic, fixed to overhanging boxed eaves.

The walling is English garden wall-bonded red brick on a stone plinth, with a stone string-course between the ground and first floors. The rear elevations are finished in roughcast render.

Windows throughout are six-over-six timber sash without horns, set into stone-lined reveals. At ground floor level the reveals have projecting stone sills; at first floor the sills are flush with the wall face. All windows have red brick voussoirs and an apron detail below. The canted bay windows have a six-over-six sash to the central facet, flanked by two-over-two sashes on each side, and are surmounted by a lead-lined roof.

PRINCIPAL ELEVATION

The principal elevation faces south and is symmetrically arranged around the projecting single-storey entrance porch, with five window openings at each floor. The porch is clasped by slightly projecting piers, carries a slightly projecting header-brick frieze, and is surmounted by a moulded stone cornice. It opens to the south via a recessed round-headed entrance containing a replacement raised-and-fielded four-panel timber door, surmounted by a timber fanlight and approached by a single stone step. An original bronze bell-push is fixed to a timber plate to the right of the door. The porch is lit on each cheek by a round-headed multi-paned window.

WEST AND EAST ELEVATIONS

The west elevation has two widely-spaced windows at first floor level, a window to the left at ground floor, and a canted bay window to the right at ground floor. The east elevation is detailed in the same manner, with the canted bay window positioned to the left at ground floor.

REAR (NORTH) ELEVATION

The rear elevation has a shallow two-storey extension to the right, which is lower than the main block and has a modern rendered chimneystack abutting its exposed west face. This extension contains three modern window insertions at first floor and a two-over-four sash at ground floor, and is abutted to the right by a modern rendered single-storey garage. To the left is a two-storey rendered return with a hipped roof, having three uPVC windows and a uPVC door on its east elevation. This return is abutted to the north and west by a partially open modern porch dating from around 1980, with a timber-sheeted ceiling supported on square metal columns.

SETTING

The property is accessed from the northwest by a long, concrete, tree-lined laneway, which crosses a river via a flat concrete bridge with wrought-iron parapets. The lane leads to an agricultural yard to the rear and to the entrance forecourt at the front. A modern cattle grid at the entrance is flanked by roughcast rendered walls with saddleback coping and square piers with pointed caps.

To the front of the house is a concrete forecourt and a small lawned garden, bounded to the south by mature hedges. To the west is a concrete lean-to garage opening to the south with a timber-sheeted garage door. A modern timber fence to the east bounds neighbouring farmland.

The concrete yard to the rear contains a modified two-storey former coach house to the north, with a hipped natural slate roof and roughcast rendered walls on a smooth rendered plinth. Its south elevation has three narrow metal lattice windows at first floor and four six-paned timber windows at ground floor. To the centre of this elevation is a set of large replacement square-headed timber sliding doors surmounted by a segmental-headed fanlight with red brick infill. There is a replacement timber-sheeted door to the left and a round-headed timber-sheeted door to the right. The east gable of the former coach house is abutted by a single-storey brick outbuilding with a timber-sheeted door under a timber lintel to the left. The yard is enclosed to the west by a modern single-storey concrete block outbuilding with a corrugated tin roof, and to the north and east by a group of large modern agricultural sheds.

HISTORY

Gortin House did not appear on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of the area (1832) but was recorded on the second edition, surveyed in the late 1840s to early 1850s, confirming a construction date of between 1832 and around 1849–53. The second edition map also shows that the single-storey return and the coach house to the rear had been built by around 1850, and the overall layout of the house and its associated outbuildings has not changed significantly since that time. A bleach mill that was recorded to the northwest of the house on the second edition map has since been demolished.

Griffith's Valuation of 1858 records that Gortin House was occupied by James Lancey, who leased the property, valued at £25, from the Marquis of Waterford. Lancey was a local landowner and gentleman who in turn leased his bleach mill to the textile firm William Clarke & Co. He died in July 1859, leaving Gortin House and effects valued at under £6,000 to his widow Jane Lancey. Despite his death, James Lancey continued to be recorded as occupant for over a decade afterwards, until 1872 when a Mr William Thompson purchased the farm outright. Thompson resided at Gortin House until 1900, when William Hill, a local farmer, took over the lease; in that year the property's rateable value was reduced to £19 10s.

The 1901 Census records that William Hill was not present at Gortin House on census night, but his relatives — most likely his sisters — Annie Hill and Marian Hill were in occupation. The census building return described Gortin House as a first-class farmhouse of 15 inhabited rooms, with outbuildings including a stable, coach house, two cow houses, a boiling house, and a barn.

By 1911, ownership had passed to Dr Hugh Rankin Torrents (aged 66, Presbyterian), a lecturer at Queen's University Belfast, who resided at Gortin House with his wife Harriett (aged 45) and their infant son. The Torrents remained until 1919, when a Mr Hugh McFetridge took over, and the property's value was further reduced to £14. McFetridge resided there until the Annual Revisions were cancelled in 1929. By the time of the First General Revaluation of property in Northern Ireland in 1935, a Mr Robert Warwick had taken possession, and the rateable value had risen to £27, largely through inflation. The third and fourth edition Ordnance Survey maps (1904–05 and 1924–33) recorded no significant change to the farm layout during this period. By the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the farmhouse was occupied by a Mr John Clyde and valued at £38. It was under John Clyde's ownership that the modern farm buildings and barns to the northeast of the house were constructed, prior to the current edition of the Ordnance Survey map (1984). The single-storey extension at the end of the rear return was built at around the same time, circa 1980.

Architecturally, Gortin House is notable as an early Victorian structure built using the materials and techniques of its time, while being clearly designed in imitation of the grander formal farmhouses of the Georgian period. This Georgian quality was sufficiently convincing to lead the architectural historian Alistair Rowan, writing in The Buildings of Ireland: North West Ulster (Yale University Press, 1979), to date the house to the 1830s. Gortin House continues in use as a private dwelling and has been sensitively maintained by its current owners, preserving much of the site's original character.