Rushbrook House, 15 Craigmore Road, Aghadowey, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT51 4EX

Rushbrook House is a double-pile two-storey farmhouse built around 1800, with later alterations, standing on a large elevated site on the north side of Craigmore Road south of Coleraine. The house commands views over surrounding countryside and is prominently sited as an important example of a wealthy Georgian farmer's aspirations to emulate the formal country houses of the period.

The house was originally built as a linen mansion in 1803 by John Knox. According to the Ordnance Survey Memoirs, it was improved in 1819 and described as "a good brick house of two-storeys" standing "on the declining side of a hill facing the east, with a lawn in front of about 7 acres, well planted at the edges with different kinds of trees". The memoirs noted it as "the most picturesquely situated" of the gentlemen's residences in the area, though with imperfect views from the front door. The property originally comprised the house, a 25-acre bleach green, and associated beetling and wash mills. By Griffith's Valuation of 1856-64, the house and outbuildings sat on over 93 acres and were valued at £35. The house subsequently passed through several owners: Robert Knox leased it from George Alexander; Hugh Stewart acquired it in 1877, followed by Miss Gage in 1892 and John H Hegarty in 1894. The 1901 census records John Hutchinson Hegarty, a farmer, resident with his wife and seven children in a ten-room house designated first class. By the 1930s valuation, the ground floor comprised a hall, two receptions, breakfast room, bedroom, lumber room, kitchen, scullery, pantry and meal store, with seven bedrooms and a boxroom upstairs. The house had a dry closet, oil lamp lighting and water supplied by pump. The building was listed in 1977 and underwent repairs and renovations in the late 1970s.

The house retains Georgian proportions and important detailing including fenestration. The rectangular plan features a two-storey bowed entrance bay to the south side elevation and a two-storey gabled extension to the west. The pitched roof is of natural slate with blue and black angled ridge tiles and replacement red-brick chimneystacks. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods with cast-iron downpipes and hoppers are fitted throughout.

The walling is pebbledash on a cement-rendered plinth with cement stepped quoins; the east elevation has a coursed rubble stone plinth and a painted stone string course. Windows are predominantly timber sash with horns, arranged as 6/3 lights to the first floor and 6/6 to the ground floor, set in painted smooth render surrounds with projecting painted sills. Replacement timber casements and uPVC windows are present to the north and west elevations.

The entrance elevation faces south, comprising two gables linked by a valley parapet with a central two-storey bowed entrance bay. The bay contains a window to both first and ground floors on its left side. Above a replacement round-headed doorcase sits a modern four-panelled timber door flanked by panelled sidelights and surmounted by a spiderweb fanlight, all within a cement-rendered surround with keyblock and accessed via stone and concrete steps. To the right of the bowed bay is a secondary entrance door of modern panelled-and-glazed timber in a cement-rendered surround, reached by three concrete steps.

The west elevation is abutted on its left by the two-storey extension. To the right is a replacement round-headed stairwell window with coloured glass panels, with a replacement window of two coloured glass panels at ground floor level below. The extension itself has windows to first and ground floor at the gable, and its south elevation features two large window openings to the right. The north elevation is abutted by a lean-to entrance porch flush with the rear gable on its left, containing a uPVC window and door. The north elevation comprises two gables; the right gable is slightly wider and set back, with two widely-spaced uPVC windows at ground and first floor. The right gable has a 6/6 window to the first floor right. The east elevation is five evenly-spaced windows wide at both first and ground floor levels.

The house stands on a large plot to the north of Craigmore Road, overlooking farmland to the north and planted with mature trees. A variety of farm buildings, including modern agricultural sheds, lie to the west and north. Access from Craigmore Road is via coursed blackstone entrance walls with square piers having pointed caps; a tarmacadamed entrance flanked by hedges leads to a yard at the north. The yard is laid with concrete and contains rubblestone slated outbuildings to the north and east. A two-storey barn to the north has a half-hipped roof with a variety of metal casement windows and timber-sheeted openings in red-brick surrounds. A modern cement-rendered garage stands to the northwest side of the yard.

The house is of particular local interest and features a fine gate screen within the entrance composition.