St Margaret's Rectory, 44 Crevolea Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51 4ES

St Margaret's Rectory is a three-bay, two-storey-over-basement detached former rectory with attic, situated on the north side of Crevolea Road in Aghadowey, south of Coleraine. The building predates 1830 and was remodelled in the Gothic style around 1840. Architectural historian Alistair Rowan described it as a 'curiously pretty' and 'waywardly irregular' Regency house. It has been sensitively refurbished by its present owners and retains much of its Victorian detailing in good condition.

Origins and History

The house began life as a linen mansion, almost certainly associated with the bleach green at Ballybritain, recorded by the Ordnance Survey Memoirs as the oldest bleach green in the parish — predating 1744 — which suggests the core of the building may itself be of considerable antiquity. The thickness of the masonry walls in the earlier part of the house lends some support to this. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1831–2 shows the house as rectangular in plan with a small rear return, and the large barn still present on the site today is also depicted. A large expanse of bleach green was laid out beside the house.

At the time of the Townland Valuation of 1828–40, the occupier was Henry Hunter, and the house and offices were valued at £15 2s. Hunter appears to have owned the adjoining bleaching concern in partnership with Messrs McFarland and Hemphill.

The house was subsequently taken over by the Orr family, who had come to the Aghadowey district in the mid-18th century. William Orr, a captain in the 75th Regiment who died in 1873, married Susan, daughter of Averil Lecky of Castle Lecky. They had two daughters: Margaret, who died as a child in 1836 aged thirteen, and Alicia, who also died prematurely of consumption. The current name 'St Margaret' commemorates William Orr's lamented elder daughter. By the time of Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64, William Orr was listed as occupier, with the house and outbuildings valued at £27, sitting on a plot of over 89 acres. The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1849–52 shows the house as significantly extended both to the front and rear.

William Orr died in 1873, leaving everything to his wife Susan and requesting that twenty pounds be distributed among the poor of the parish. After Susan Lecky Orr's death in 1883, the house was taken over as the rectory for Aghadowey parish. The Reverend William Colquhoun is listed as occupier from 1885, at which point the valuation was reduced to £22, perhaps in view of the change of use. Residency thereafter changed with each incumbency. At the time of the 1911 census, the rector was Robert W. W. Alexander, an Englishman aged 39, who retained a cook as a domestic servant.

By the First General Revaluation of the 1930s, the accommodation comprised on the ground floor three reception rooms, a kitchen, scullery, and pantry; on the first floor, four bedrooms, a study, and a bathroom and WC; and three disused bedrooms in the attic. The valuer described the house as in good repair, with water supplied by hand pump to a tank. The house remained a rectory until at least the 1970s, was listed in 1977, and underwent major renovation to restore the house and stables in the 1980s and 1990s. It remains in domestic use.

Plan and Massing

The original Georgian house had a rectangular footprint with a small rear return. Around 1840 it was extended to incorporate canted ends to the north and south and a two-storey gabled block to the rear, creating an L-shaped plan. To the front, a two-storey gabled bay and a single-storey porch were added at the same time, forming an L-shaped projection. The gabled bay is abutted by a two-storey extension with a lower hipped roof. A shallow two-storey flat-roofed extension was added to the rear. The internal layout is irregular, reflecting the remodelling of the Georgian house and illustrating the shift in preference for the use of internal space during the early to mid-19th century.

Exterior

The roof is steeply hipped, covered in natural slate with leaded ridges and hips, and plain bargeboards to the gables. There are three rendered chimneystacks, each with two tall clay pots and paired chamfered shafts, and a plain rendered chimneystack to the rear gabled block. Rainwater goods are cast-iron half-round on projecting eaves with box eaves, with cast-iron downpipes and hoppers. The walling is painted ruled-and-lined render with a plinth course and raised quoins.

Windows are a varied array of refurbished Gothic multi-paned double-hung timber casements in blocked stucco surrounds with projecting painted sills. First-floor windows have cusped glazing bars and margin panes in square reveals. Ground-floor windows to the canted bays are bipartite cusped Y-tracery Gothic-arched casements with quatrefoil and coloured glass panes in pointed-headed reveals.

Principal (East) Elevation

The principal elevation faces east. A two-storey gabled bay sits right of centre, abutted on its left cheek by the single-storey porch and to the east by the two-storey extension. To the right of the gabled bay is a window at first-floor level and a window with carved spandrels at ground floor. To the left are two bipartite cusped Y-tracery windows at first floor and a window at ground floor. The extension has a profiled multi-paned window at first floor over a Gothic multi-paned window with margin panes and carved spandrels.

The porch is surmounted by a decorative cast-iron balustrade and lead-lined cornice. It has a raised-and-fielded four-panel timber door with brass door furniture and a pointed-headed three-light transom in a pointed-headed lined stucco reveal, accessed via two concrete steps. To the left cheek of the porch is a slender pointed-headed cusped lancet window with decorative blocks to the head.

The canted south end has a window at first floor and ground floor on each facet. The gabled block to the left, dating from around 1840, is three windows wide at first floor, with two cusped square-headed windows at ground floor, the right-hand one being bipartite.

Rear (West) Elevation

The gabled block is to the right of the west elevation. To the left, set back and breaking into the eaves, is a gabled bay rising above the centre of the roofline and containing a four-paned timber casement window. The two-storey flat-roofed extension beneath has two slightly projecting six-paned timber casement windows at first floor. At ground floor there is a four-paned timber casement window and a segmental-headed arched entrance with stone steps leading to the former servants' entrance at basement level. Set within an arched recess in the rear wall of the house is a 4/4 sash window at ground floor and a bipartite 2/2 sash window with horns in a segmental-headed recess at basement level.

To the right of the extension is a pointed-headed multi-paned timber stairwell window with coloured glass panels, above a 6/6 timber sash window with margin panes and horns. The west elevation of the gabled block has a 4/8 timber sash window over a side-hung bipartite three-paned timber casement window. There is a timber-sheeted entrance door with a cast-iron knocker and a slated lean-to extension to the right; this lean-to has two four-paned windows and opens to the east with a timber-sheeted door. The canted north end has a window at first floor on each facet, and a bipartite Gothic window with carved spandrels to the central facet only at ground floor.

Setting

The house stands on a large, mature site on the north side of Crevolea Road. To the rear is a gravelled yard containing a two-storey roughcast rendered slated outbuilding, which has group value with the main house, and a squared blackstone circular well with a slated timber canopy over it. The yard is enclosed to the north by a rubblestone garden wall with a pointed-headed arch entrance of red brick leading to the main garden to the north and east. A wide variety of mature trees grows across the site, particularly to the north, and a kitchen garden to the northwest remains in use.

The boundary to Crevolea Road to the south is formed by a roughcast rendered wall with a cement coping, square piers with pointed cement caps, and replacement cast-iron gates to vehicular entrances at the southwest and southeast, with a small cast-iron latch gate at the centre. The main entrance at the southeast is gravelled.