Cromore House, 58 Cromore Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT55 7PW

Cromore House is a substantial mid-18th century country house in the townland of Ballyleese North, situated to the west side of Cromore Road southeast of Portstewart town centre. Now operating as an elderly care home, it was built between approximately 1760 and 1779 and significantly remodelled in 1834, with much of the surviving fabric dating from that improvement campaign. The house is symmetrical in form, four bays wide, two storeys over a basement with an attic, and is distinguished by a pair of flanking single-storey Doric-style pavilions added in 1834. It has group value with the gate lodge (HB03/07/011B) and is much enhanced by a relatively intact setting that includes a walled garden and a Victorian gate screen to the east.

PLAN AND STRUCTURE

The building follows a rectangular plan comprising a central Georgian section flanked by end bays and the two single-storey pavilions dating from 1834; the pavilion to the southwest is detached. To the northeast stands the original two-storey rubblestone L-shaped former stable block. The roof is hipped, covered in natural slate with leaded ridges and hips, and has ashlar chimneystacks and a sandstone parapet. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods hang from projecting modillioned eaves. The external walling is pink sandstone with raised quoins and a plinth, finished with a plain frieze under the eaves.

EXTERIOR

The Georgian central section has 6/6 timber sash windows surmounted by keyblocks with projecting sandstone sills. The Victorian end bays have large multi-paned timber windows with margin panes at each floor, surmounted by a corniced canopy with console brackets. Three 3/3 dormer windows serve the southeast, northwest, and southwest elevations.

The southeast-facing principal elevation is symmetrically arranged. The original central section is simply detailed with four evenly spaced windows at each floor, diminished in height on the upper storey. The flanking end bays each contain Victorian glazing set within a two-storey breakfront.

The southwest elevation has three windows at each floor. The first-floor windows have moulded architraves. At ground floor level, tall multi-paned openings contain double-leaf French doors surmounted by drip moulds. A 10/10 window and a modern door serve the raised basement beneath a verandah supported on concrete piers; the verandah has a sandstone balustrade and piers with lion heads carved in high relief.

The northwest rear elevation is symmetrically arranged, with a central projecting section four openings wide at each floor, including two modern entrance doors to the raised basement. The end bays are each two openings wide and have modern timber doors to the basement.

The northeast elevation has a timber tripartite window to the first floor flanked by 6/6 windows. At ground-floor level it is abutted on the left by a single-storey Doric pavilion, and on the right by the two-storey rubblestone former stable block, which has received a modern glazed timber entrance insertion detailed to reflect the Doric elements found in each of the pavilions.

PAVILIONS

The northeast pavilion is fronted on the right by a prostyle tetrastyle portico — that is, a free-standing porch with four columns across its front — raised on a stone platform reached by bull-nosed steps. All detailing is consistent with the Doric order. The soffit is panelled and the platform is enclosed to either side by a stone balustrade. The central panelled timber door is flanked by alcoved niches, all divided by pilaster responds, with panelled stone reveals and a moulded architrave. The right cheek has a margin-paned window inset with a top-hung casement, with a deep moulded sill over scrolled brackets and a panelled apron. The left cheek has a 6/6 sash to the left and a blind opening to the right, detailed in the same manner. The rear elevation of the pavilion is entirely abutted by the former stable block. uPVC entrance doors open to the southeast.

The detached southwest pavilion is detailed to match the northeast pavilion. It is glazed as a conservatory and retains its original timber casement windows and wainscoting to the apron panels. The southeast elevation has a timber-sheeted and glazed double-leaf timber door reached by three sandstone steps.

INTERIOR

The splendid hall, which contains an Ionic screen and staircase, was constructed in 1834 as part of John Cromie's improvement works.

SETTING

The house sits within an extensive mature site. The entrance from Cromore Road is marked by four ashlar sandstone gate piers, with the outer piers separated from the central, taller piers by original spearhead cast-iron railings and gates, supported on responds with decorative scrolled brackets. The central piers have decorative raised and pointed panels to their shafts and pointed caps. A rock-faced stone boundary wall runs along the road frontage. The lodge and gate screen were later additions of around 1857.

To the front of the house is a raised slab terrace with a sandstone plinth wall topped by spearhead cast-iron railings, with sandstone steps to the end bays dating from 1834. Bull-nosed stone steps serve the end bays and pavilions, with modern metal handrails, and are divided by parapet walls with coping and a cast-iron lamp to the lower pier. A sandstone balustrade to the front and southwest has piers with carved lion heads in high relief.

To the rear is a lawned garden separated from the house by a narrow path and a row of modern metal railings, enclosed by mature planting. The former walled garden to the east of the house is no longer in use, but its rubblestone and red-brick wall remains almost entirely intact. To the northeast, the former service buildings have been refurbished and converted for use as holiday accommodation. These form an L-shaped range of two-storey rubblestone buildings with red-brick chimneystacks and dressings, arranged around a central yard with modern landscaping, enclosed by a rubblestone wall and accessed through a modern round-headed red-brick arch with a pediment topped by sandstone coping. Tarmacadamed car parking occupies the northeast corner of the site. The grounds contain a variety of planting and mature trees dating from the 18th century, with a mid-19th century infill phase also represented.

HISTORY

The Cromie family were first recorded in the mid-17th century in Tullaghgore, County Antrim. By the mid-18th century, John Cromie had constructed the central four-bay section of Cromore House at Ballyleese, where his maternal ancestors, the Stewarts of Ballyleese, had originated. It was those ancestors who provided the name for Portstewart, which John Cromie founded in 1792. The house appeared on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830 as an oblong structure flanked by two smaller outbuildings to its northeast and southwest sides, both now demolished.

Lewis, writing in his Topographical Dictionary of 1837, described Cromore as "an elegant mansion, the residence of J. Cromie Esq., the principal proprietor in the parish." The contemporary Townland Valuations of around 1830 valued Cromie's estate at £32 14s. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs record that during the 1830s Cromore House was occupied by a Mr G. A. Wray, who vacated the property around 1834 when he moved to Inishowen in County Donegal. John Cromie then reoccupied the house and in 1834 undertook improvement work "by building additions to it and ornamenting [it] with cut sandstone." These improvements included the two-storey wings to either side of the original mansion, the single-storey entrance porches flanking each extension, and probably also the two-storey L-shaped stable block to the northeast, which first appeared on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of around 1860. The outbuildings further to the northeast, now converted to holiday accommodation, were also erected during this period and were part of the same programme of general improvement across the Cromie estate. By the time of Griffith's Valuation in 1857, the value of the house had risen to £85 as a result of these additions. The same survey also records that a schoolhouse had been constructed on Cromie's land since the 1830 map; valued at £2, it was demolished between 1888 and 1894.

John Cromie died in 1875, after which administration of the estate passed to his representatives. It was during this transitional period that the gate lodge was constructed, raising the combined value of the house and out offices to £87. Bence-Jones records that after John Cromie's death, the house passed to the Montague family through the marriage of Ellen Cromie to Lord Robert Montague (1825–1902), a Roman Catholic Conservative Member of Parliament who later reverted to Protestantism as a protest against Gladstone's Irish policies. Ellen Cromie died in 1857 at the age of 32. Their son, Robert Acheson Montague, took over the Cromore estate in 1886 and remained there until his death in 1931. The 1901 and 1911 Census records describe Robert Montague (1854–1931) as a former Lieutenant in the Royal Navy who retired to Portstewart and was later appointed a Justice of the Peace. Although he was not resident at Cromore during the 1901 Census, the Census Building Return described the property as a first-class dwelling with 30 inhabited rooms and extensive out offices including four stables in the L-shaped stable block, four cow houses, a dairy, four piggeries, and a barn. Robert Montague purchased the house outright in 1907, and the 1911 Census recorded him residing there with his wife and daughter and a number of servants. He continued to live at Cromore House until his death in 1931. The estate remained in the Montague family until the mid-20th century, after which the house fell vacant and into disrepair. It was listed in Category A in 1976. In more recent years it served as a residence for postgraduate students at the University of Ulster before being renovated and converted to its current use as an elderly care home.