Mount Pleasant, 23 Mountsandel Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT52 1JE

Mount Pleasant, 23 Mountsandel Road, Coleraine

Mount Pleasant is a late-Victorian detached townhouse dated 1879, built on the steeply sloping east bank of the River Bann in Coleraine town centre. It is a split-level building of two storeys to the front and three storeys to the rear, three bays wide, with a rectangular plan. It represents a fine and well-preserved example of a late-Victorian townhouse, with a wealth of high-quality period detailing. The building is currently vacant and falling into disrepair.

Architectural Description

The roof is pitched natural slate with terracotta crestings, leaded valleys, and rendered chimneystacks with moulded caps. The gables have plain bargeboards and terracotta finials, and the eaves are formed by projecting bracketed timber with cast-iron ogee rainwater goods. The external walls are painted smooth render over a chamfered plinth.

The principal elevation faces east onto Mountsandel Road. A central gabled projection is flanked on each side by a single-storey bay at this elevation (rising to two storeys on other elevations), each bay having paired windows under a continuous label mould that rises to a centre point and is topped by a decorative finial. The central gabled projection features a moulded roundel at the apex of the gable, inscribed with the date "1879". Below this is a pointed-headed window with a hood mould at first-floor level, above two square-headed openings that are currently boarded over. The left side of the principal elevation has a set of timber steps leading to a boarded timber door at first-floor level; the right side is blank.

The windows throughout are one-over-one timber sash with horns and projecting masonry sills; several are boarded over. The windows on the east elevation have label moulds over them with moulded stops. The south elevation has two segmental-headed one-over-one sash windows at first-floor level and one one-over-one window at ground-floor left; the lower ground level is not visible from this side. The west elevation has paired windows at each floor level within its gabled projection. The north elevation has two segmental-headed timber sash windows at first-floor level, a one-over-one window at ground-floor right, and at lower ground-floor level a large boarded window opening and an entrance (the door is missing) with a transom light over, positioned to the left.

The two-storey gabled projection faces the front, and the three-storey gabled projection faces the rear.

Setting

The house is situated on the west side of Mountsandel Road, set into the bank above the River Bann. The boundary to Mountsandel Road is formed partly by a partially replaced castellated concrete wall and partly by original stone piers with polygonal caps and moulded roundels on their east faces.

History

Mount Pleasant was built in 1879 by John Baxter, a house painter who ran a decorating business with his brother David under the name J. & D. Baxter. Baxter had leased the plot from the Marquis of Hertford in 1872, and according to the Ulster Town Directory for 1880, he also owned a separate house at Portrush. On completion, the cottage was valued at £21 15s in the Annual Revisions, a valuation that remained unchanged until 1931. The Annual Revisions town plan (circa 1882–1907) records that the layout of the cottage has not been altered since its construction, and that a rectangular outbuilding to the north side of the property was erected shortly after the cottage was completed. John Baxter lived at Mount Pleasant until his death in 1885, when he bequeathed the cottage, his Portrush property, and effects of £1,220 13s. 9d. to his widow Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Baxter did not reside at the property, and in 1887 Hugh Eccles, a local printer, took possession, leasing the site from Warren Baxter (likely John and Elizabeth's son). The 1901 Census records Eccles (aged 46, Presbyterian) living at Mount Pleasant with his wife Emma (aged 37, born in New York City) and their three children. The census building return described the cottage as a first-class dwelling with 12 rooms, and noted a fowl house, turf house, and shed as outbuildings, all housed within the rectangular outbuilding to the north — this outbuilding was demolished in the late 20th century. Eccles vacated the property in 1902, and the cottage lay vacant for seven years until Mrs Eva Christie purchased it in 1909. The 1911 Census records Eva Christie (aged 33, Presbyterian) living there with her husband Daniel Hall Christie, a plumber and gasfitter (noted in the Ulster Town Directory for 1918), and their infant son. The Christie family remained at Mount Pleasant at least until the cancellation of the Annual Revisions in 1931, when Eva Christie was still recorded as occupant.

By the First General Revaluation of property in Northern Ireland in 1935, the value had risen to £43, with a Mr Joseph Cameron recorded as occupant. By the second revaluation (1956–72), the value had risen again to £52, and by the time the valuation survey was cancelled in 1972, a Professor Amyan McFadyen was recorded as owner and occupant. Professor McFadyen was a professor of Ecology and Environmental Science at the University of Ulster in Coleraine, an editor of the journal Advances in Ecological Research, and in the 1990s stood as a politician for the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. The house was listed in 1977.

Writing in 1972, Girvan described Mount Pleasant as "a pleasing Victorian cottage orné, stuccoed, with Tudor-style drip mouldings, and a spectacular view across the river."

Condition and Alterations

There has been little discernible alteration to the cottage since its construction in 1879. A greenhouse had been installed to the front of the property by 1973 but has since been removed. The outbuilding to the north side, last depicted on the Ordnance Survey map of 1967–68, was demolished in the late 20th century. Mount Pleasant is currently vacant, with the original glazing broken and all entrances and openings boarded up, and the building is falling into a state of disrepair.