Gresteel House, 11 Foyle Avenue, Eglinton, Co Londonderry, BT47 3EB

Gresteel House is a fine example of a medium-sized two-storey late Victorian farmhouse, dating from around 1880. It demonstrates good proportions, well-preserved ornamentation, and a carefully considered plan form, representing an important stage in the development from clachan settlement to the homestead of a better-off farmer. The field patterns in the surrounding landscape equally reflect this transformation, changing from narrow strips to larger enclosures.

The house is situated between the main Derry-Limavady Road and Lough Foyle in flat farmland with well-kept generous fields. It forms a cluster with other dwellings, dotted with mature trees. Foyle Avenue winds between the houses and runs north to serve other homesteads. The main facade faces east towards the main road. The house is bounded on the east and south by garden and hedge; to the west lies the farmyard and to the north, fields. Within the garden stands a fine Araucaria Imbricata (Monkey Puzzle), placed directly in line with the front door and now possibly past its prime. On the south side there is a handsome Juglans Regia (Common Walnut). Virginian Creeper covers the front and conceals much architectural detail.

The building is three bays wide with a two-storey gabled structure in later Victorian style, augmented by a one-bay two-storey back return with a single-storey lean-to at right angles to it. The central facade features a fanlighted panelled doorway with tripartite windows on the ground floor on either side. Above the doorway is a single round-headed window with pairs of round-headed windows on either side. A square string course defines the first floor, with paired modillions at the eaves and a moulded string course forming the cornice. Ground floor windows are decorated with panelled pilasters and cornices, as are those of the first floor. The decorative treatment is difficult to appreciate due to the Virginian Creeper covering the entire south facade and west gables. The main facade is smooth rendered with emphasised V-joints on the ground floor in imitation ashlar; gable walls are lined and rear walls harled and painted white. Windows are sliding sashes, each divided horizontally into two with original porcelain sash fittings. The main door is four-panelled with glazed rounded heads to the top two panels, retaining original ironmongery in good condition. Windows to the back returns are in Georgian panes; those to the lean-to portion are modern. The roof features natural slates and brick chimneys, the whole exterior well maintained. Lean-to back returns are slated with asbestos slates. From the east gable projects a narrow outhouse with natural slated roof and lean-to with back wall built in stone, the outhouse returning northward to form an enclosed yard. A high stone wall to the south provides a good foil to the house facade.

The Ordnance Survey Map of 1830 shows a cluster of dwellings in close formation at this location on either side of the roadway now known as Foyle Avenue, not unlike a clachan grouping, with field patterns of narrow strips running north-south. Most of these dwellings have been removed; one remaining just east of Gresteel House, much renovated and said to retain some stone and mud walls, remains in the same ownership. None of the buildings within the owner's farmyard and dwelling appear to date from 1830. The present house appears to date from circa 1880, including the lean-to outhouses. It is not referred to in Griffith's Valuation Book nor shown on the Ordnance Survey of 1858. The owner possesses a framed magazine article from Illustrated America dated 1896, showing a photograph of the house as typical of a Scotch-Irish house with an example of a Scotch-Irish house in America. The young Araucaria Imbricata shown in front of the house in the photograph is approximately eaves height, representing roughly 16 years of growth; the Monkey Puzzle remains today, now somewhat past its best. The architect for the house may have been A Given of Limavady or Barker of Derry; the house style is certainly reminiscent of Barker.