Blackheath House, 112 Killeague Road, Garvagh, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51 4HH

Blackheath House is a symmetrical three-bay, two-and-a-half-storey-over-basement rendered country house, built between 1791 and 1794 to designs attributed to Michael Shanahan — architect to the Earl Bishop of Derry and designer of Downhill — and situated on the east side of Killeague Road, south of Coleraine, in the townland of Craiglea Glebe. It was built as a parish glebe house by the Reverend Henry Hervey Bruce, who was later knighted and became the first Baronet Downhill, with a grant of £100 from the Board of First Fruits towards a total construction cost of £1,756. Although no documentary evidence for Shanahan's authorship survives, the attribution rests on what architectural historian Rankin describes as a characteristic "reliance on proportion, on the relation of solid to void and not on ornament" shared with Shanahan's other ecclesiastical buildings. The house has been refurbished in recent decades and retains its overall external appearance, though with some modern alterations and additions. A group of outbuildings arranged around a small yard adds to the historic and architectural interest. The listing covers the house, outbuildings, and gate piers.

Architectural Description

The house has a rectangular plan with a single-storey projecting porch to the northwest, modern single-storey extensions to the northeast and southwest, and a modern garage to the rear (of little interest). The pitched roof is clad in natural slate with blue-black angled ridge tiles, raised masonry verges, and ruled-and-lined rendered chimneystacks to the gables carrying six tall clay pots. Rainwater goods are cast-iron ogee profile on timber fascia boards. Walling is painted smooth render throughout.

The principal elevation faces northwest and is three openings wide at each floor. Windows on this elevation are six-over-six timber sash with horns and projecting painted sills, diminished at first-floor level; modern timber windows are used at basement level and on all other elevations. The projecting ground-floor centre porch has round-headed replacement timber casement windows to its left and right cheeks, set in rectangular recesses. The entrance itself, also in a rectangular recess, consists of a raised-and-fielded four-panel timber door with brass door furniture, surmounted by a radial timber fanlight and flanked by pilaster jambs with moulded imposts, an archivolt, and a vermiculated keyblock. The porch is accessed via a single sandstone step and is flanked by replacement cast-iron railings on a plinth wall enclosing the basement area. The basement channel is now partially roofed.

The northeast elevation has three windows at attic level — the right-hand one being a four-over-one sash and set lower than the others — and a single window at first-floor right. At ground-floor right it is abutted by a gabled single-storey-over-basement modern extension, with a flat-roofed modern addition adjoining at basement level to the left. The southeast rear elevation is five evenly spaced windows wide at each floor; the exposed basement has four windows and is abutted at the right by the modern flat-roofed garage. The southwest gable has three windows at attic level and is fully abutted at ground-floor level by a large single-storey modern extension with a conservatory entrance opening to the northwest.

Setting

The house stands on a mature plot accessed from the south via a gravel drive, with circular rubble stone entrance piers with pointed caps at the road. The drive leads to a small yard to the southwest of the house, enclosed by painted rubblestone walls with circular lime-washed gate piers having conical caps and carrying cast-iron gates. The outbuildings surrounding this yard have been refurbished but retain a traditional appearance, with slate roofs, lime-washed walls, and timber-sheeted openings. On the north side of the yard, abutting the single-storey extension at the southeast, is a single-storey modified outbuilding with a bell-cote and bell to the northwest gable; this has been fully refurbished and incorporated into the main house. A gravelled parking area with a shrubbed turning circle lies to the front of the house, with views over the surrounding countryside to the southeast.

Historical Background

Blackheath House is shown, captioned, on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1831–32, along with two outbuildings to the west that have survived. By the time of the second edition map of 1849–52, the building had changed considerably in plan form, having been extended to the rear and sides.

The house was originally built as the parish glebe house. Samuel Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of 1837 records that above the mantelpiece in the 1830s was a sculpture of Socrates "discovering his pupil Alcibiades in the haunts of dissipation," which had been brought from Italy by the Earl Bishop of Derry and given to Sir Henry Hervey Bruce, to whom the Earl Bishop later bequeathed his entire property in Ireland. The sculpture was purchased in 1884 by Bishop William Alexander, who had lived in the house as a boy, and taken to Armagh. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs describe Blackheath as a "good house…ornamented by a lawn and some plantations," and note that it "is so called from the dark colour of the heath that formerly grew over the neighbourhood."

The Townland Valuation of 1828–40 records the house and offices, occupied by the Reverend Robert Alexander, at £24. The Reverend Robert Alexander's son, William Alexander, spent his boyhood at Blackheath and later became Archbishop and Primate of Ireland. His wife was Cecil Frances Alexander, the celebrated hymn writer. William Alexander's memoirs recount how, on his birthday, he was given a Shetland pony which the old coachman, Barney, brought up the stairs of the house to his bedroom, where he was confined to bed with a cold — an incident that may have taken place at Blackheath, where the Bishop moved when he was eight years old.

Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 values the house at £23 and records it in glebe land of over 120 acres. The house passed with the incumbency of the parish for some years but by 1888 had passed into private ownership, with the Rothwell family in residence. By 1899 the valuation had been reduced to £15, and the valuer noted that the owner had tried without success to let the property, attributing this to its remote position. Subsequent owners included William McCaw from 1924 and the Kennedy Brothers from 1954.

By the 1930s the accommodation comprised a practically disused basement; on the ground floor, a hall, two reception rooms, a kitchen, scullery, pantry, bathroom, and WC; on the first floor, three bedrooms and two dressing or box rooms; and on the second floor, three attic rooms also largely disused. At this time the house had no electricity, gas, or mains water supply, with the bath, WC, and scullery fed by a rainwater tank. By 1955 the house was described as dilapidated, and its valuation was reduced to £5, with agricultural buildings also valued at £5.

The building had become completely derelict by the early 1970s, when it was restored by the Sarsfield family, who discovered the original bell — which would have called workers in from the fields — and replaced it in the stable bell-cote. The house was listed in 1977. Around 1980 a flat-roofed extension was added to the side to house a swimming pool, which was later converted to a sitting room. In the mid-1980s the basement was converted into a restaurant, operating for some years, and it appears that considerable refurbishment took place during this period, including the addition of a lean-to conservatory entrance to the front elevation. The building has since reverted to use as a private house.