Ashlea, 44 Magheraboy Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT56 8NX

Ashlea is a detached three-bay, one-and-a-half-storey double-pile house on an L-shaped plan with traditional outbuildings, built around 1865 and situated on the south side of Magheraboy Road, south of Portrush town centre, in the townland of Magheraboy. It is a good example of a typical early Victorian middle-sized rural house, and its architectural detailing is well-preserved and largely intact, retaining much of its original character.

EXTERIOR

The house has a pitched natural slate roof with angled ridge tiles and two rendered chimneystacks to the centre. The gables have decorated bargeboards and finials — originally pointed, though these were replaced at some point after 1975 with squatter poppy-head substitutes. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods run along overhanging eaves, with cast-iron downpipes and hoppers. The walls are finished in painted roughcast render on a contrasting plinth. Windows throughout are 6/6 timber-framed sash with horns and projecting painted sills, unless otherwise noted.

The principal elevation faces east and is symmetrically arranged, with a window to the gablet above the central doorcase, flanked by one ground-floor window to each side. The doorcase is approached by a semi-circular brick pavior step and consists of a four-panelled timber door with a brass lion-head knocker, surmounted by a three-pane transom and flanked by three-pane side-lights over timber aprons. Pilasters flank the doorcase and support scrolled console brackets beneath a corniced canopy.

The south elevation has two windows at each floor. The west elevation has a re-entrant angle filled by a lean-to annexe with corrugated plastic roof sheeting, flush with a projecting bay to the left. This left bay has a bipartite six-paned timber casement window at first-floor level and a bipartite eight-paned timber mullioned window with exposed boxes at ground-floor level; the south face of this bay has two windows at first floor. The right bay of the west elevation is blank at first-floor level. The north elevation shows the double-pile gables, each two windows wide at each floor, including a circular oculus window at first-floor level in the left-hand rear gable.

HISTORY

The current building replaced an earlier dwelling that had stood on the same site since perhaps the 1830s, as indicated by an indistinct building visible on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830. The Annual Revisions record that this earlier dwelling was demolished in 1866 when construction of a new house was underway; on completion, the new dwelling was valued at £8 10s.

The house was built for and owned by Dr Robert Hamilton MD of the nearby Seaview House, a Liverpool-based doctor who had retired to the Causeway Coast around 1855 and had commissioned Seaview House to a design by Charles Lanyon. Hamilton also purchased surrounding land, which he leased out to tenants. In 1866 he let the newly completed Ashlea House to a Mr John Sharpe, who resided there until 1888, after which the property was recorded under Hamilton's name alone. Despite this, both the 1901 and 1911 Census returns record the property as vacant, and it appears to have remained unoccupied for almost three decades — Hamilton himself certainly residing at the much grander Magherabuoy during this period.

The third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1904 first depicted the property under the name "Ashlea." At that time the site comprised the L-shaped house — which then lacked its annexe — together with a number of outbuildings to the south and west, of which only the western outbuildings survive today.

In 1917 a Mr Samuel Archibald reoccupied the dwelling after its long period of vacancy. The annexe abutting the rear of the house was erected during Archibald's tenure, and further improvement work was presumably undertaken at the same time, as the rateable value of the property more than doubled to £19 in that year. Archibald continued to be recorded as occupant until the end of the Annual Revisions in 1929, though the Reverend James Septimus Mairs is recorded in the PRONI Wills catalogue as having resided at Ashlea at the time of his death in 1927. The southern outbuildings were demolished in the late 20th century, after 1966 when they were last shown on the Ordnance Survey map. Ashlea was listed in 1977 and has continued in use as a private dwelling.

SETTING AND OUTBUILDINGS

The house stands on a large, mature site set back from Magheraboy Road, with a long lawned garden to the front and a central pavior driveway leading through to the rear yard. The entrance to the north leads to a paved forecourt at the front of the house. The site is bounded by mature trees and hedgerow, with modern fencing to the north.

There are two entrance arrangements. The east entrance has roughcast rendered walls with painted coping and circular piers with pointed caps supporting wrought-iron gates. The north entrance also has roughcast rendered walls, with square piers having smooth flat quoins and square caps surmounted by cast-iron lanterns, likewise supporting wrought-iron gates.

To the rear yard stands a range of single- and two-storey whitewashed rubble stone outbuildings with a variety of openings. The single-storey range to the south has three window openings without glazing. The central block is two-storey with timber louvres to the first-floor openings; at ground-floor level there is a large square-headed opening to the left, and to the right a four-paned timber casement window and a replacement timber-sheeted door; at the far right an oversized square-headed opening gives access to a modern agricultural shed to the west. To the north is the former stable block, which retains a window opening without glazing and a timber-sheeted door; square paving stones and internal partitions survive within the stable. A 20th-century pebble-dashed outbuilding stands to the southeast of the yard.