Dundooan House, 35 Dundooan Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT52 2PU

Dundooan House is a detached, symmetrical two-storey three-bay rendered country house on a rectangular plan, built around 1840 and situated on the east side of Dundooan Road, north of Coleraine. Retaining its generous proportions, symmetrical composition and much of its original external detailing, it remains a good example of an early Victorian country house.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The house is built on a rectangular plan with a single-storey lean-to extension to the rear. The roof is hipped natural slate with blue/black angled tiles to the hips and ridges, and rendered chimneystacks each carrying three tall clay pots, centralised on the principal southwest elevation. Rainwater goods are aluminium, carried on projecting stone eaves with square downpipes. External walling is finished in ruled-and-lined cement render throughout.

Windows are 6/6 timber sash with horns, projecting painted stone sills and original glazing.

The principal elevation faces southwest and is symmetrically arranged with three openings at each floor centred on a segmental-headed doorcase. The doorcase is set in a panelled reveal and comprises a replacement half-glazed, half-flush panelled timber door with beaded muntin, brass door furniture and a lion's head knocker, surmounted by a plain fanlight and flanked by pilaster jambs with moulded imposts and archivolt. The entrance is approached via two stone steps enclosed by stone balustrades.

The northwest elevation has irregularly arranged fenestration — five windows wide at each floor, including one replacement uPVC window — with the stairwell window offset to the right of centre. The northeast (rear) elevation was only partially viewed: it shows three windows at first-floor level over the slated lean-to extension, with a round-headed multi-paned window and a panelled timber door. The southeast elevation was not inspected.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The site of Dundooan House does not appear on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830, which instead depicts a small lake or pond at this location, surrounded by minor structures of no substantial importance. The contemporary Townland Valuations of around 1830 noted that there were no houses in the townland worth £5 a year. The house had certainly been completed by 1844, when the Coleraine Chronicle recorded it as the residence of Mr. John Boyd, a Member of Parliament representing the Liberal Party.

The second edition Ordnance Survey map of around 1860 shows the two-storey country residence as well as a surviving two-storey outbuilding to the northeast, also constructed by that time and now modernised and used as a separate dwelling. The layout depicted around 1860 corresponds to that of the present building, suggesting no significant alteration has taken place over the intervening period of approximately 155 years. Griffith's Valuation of 1857 recorded John Boyd as outright owner, with the main dwelling and associated outbuildings valued at £35. Boyd died in 1862, after which the house was administered by representatives of his estate.

By 1878 the Annual Revisions record that ownership had reverted to the Honourable The Irish Society, who administered much of the landed property in County Londonderry and who leased Dundooan House to a Mr. William Woodside, at which point the value of the site was increased to £40. Woodside was a returning emigrant who had made his fortune in America; according to Harper, the Woodside family had emigrated to Philadelphia in the early 19th century, where they established a successful tea trading business. After two decades William Woodside returned to Ireland seeking a country estate and, styling himself as a member of the landed gentry, purchased Dundooan House for £3,500 in 1862, refurnishing the interior — a factor which contributed to the increased valuation noted in 1878. He later became a local magistrate and made a number of return visits to the United States, dying in 1887 and leaving Dundooan to his widow Anna and his brother Robert Woodside of Carnsampson House, Ballycastle.

Shortly after Woodside's death the house passed to Mr. Henry McClintock Alexander, a Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy, who resided there until his death around 1897. According to the Ulster Town Directories, Alexander also maintained a residence in Chelsea, was a local magistrate, and was a brother to the Lord Primate of Ireland. Dundooan House was recorded as vacant in the 1901 Census, though it was briefly reoccupied in 1904 when local farmer Charles S. Murray took possession, vacating in 1909. A Mr. Robert William Jewell then occupied the farm, his family remaining for approximately a decade. The 1911 Census records Jewell as aged 69, Church of Ireland, originally from Bristol, and employed as a farmer and merchant. A widower, he lived at Dundooan with his daughter Maud. The census building return described the house as a first-class dwelling containing 14 rooms and a large number of outbuildings, including a stable, two cow houses, a barn, a boiling house and a turf house, mostly housed within the two-storey northeast outbuilding. During the First World War, Jewell's son Charles Alfred Jewell lost his life serving with the 16th Battalion Australian Infantry at the Battle of the Somme; he is commemorated in St. Patrick's Parish Church in Coleraine.

The Annual Revisions record that Robert Jewell vacated Dundooan House in 1918, though he retained ownership, as his Will at the time of his death in 1926 continued to list him as resident. From 1918 he leased the property to a Mr. James Stewart, whose family remained until the 1960s. By the First General Revaluation of property in Northern Ireland, undertaken in 1935, James Stewart Thompson continued to be listed as occupant, with the value of Dundooan House readjusted to £71. Under the second general revaluation the value was slightly reduced to £63 10s. in 1956, by which time a Mr. or Mrs. D. S. Stewart had taken possession. The Stewart family vacated in 1965 when a Mr. Sutherland Mitchell occupied the property, purchasing the site outright from the Honourable The Irish Society in 1969 and continuing to be listed as occupant through to the end of the second revaluation in 1972.

Dundooan House was listed in 1977. A survey note of 1972 by Girvan described it as a three-bay stuccoed house, two storeys high with a hipped roof in late-Georgian traditions, extending back six bays, and noted that the Ionic portico had at that time been converted into a glazed conservatory. He also observed that the interior plasterwork was coarse but that the drawing room contained an interesting false wall that could be raised and concealed within the cavity of the bedroom wall above, thereby combining the drawing room and morning room into a single space. Since the first survey photograph of 1976, the grand entrance porch with its Ionic pillars and portico has been removed; the dwelling is now entered through the previously concealed elliptical arched doorcase with plain fanlight above, which is described in the current listing.

SETTING AND GATES

The house is situated on a large, mature site to the east side of Dundooan Road. Gravelled drives to the northwest and west lead to a gravelled concourse at the front of the house, with grounds extending to the southwest planted with a variety of mature trees. The boundary to the road at the west is formed by a modern timber fence.

The principal entrance at the west is marked by curved smooth rendered entrance walls with square piers and caps surmounted by carved stone lions. Original polygonal cast-iron gate posts with finials support original cast-iron gates, with a latch gate to the south side. The northeast entrance has a modern timber farmgate and timber fence; a smooth rendered wall to the left terminates in a square pier topped by a ball finial.

The listing extends to the house, gates and gate posts.