Pellipar House, Dungiven, Co Londonderry, BT47 4LY

Pellipar House is a country house of considerable architectural and historical distinction, situated in extensive grounds adjacent to the River Roe near Dungiven in County Londonderry. Its core was probably built in the early 18th century by the Cary family, substantially improved and extended in the late 18th century by the Ogilby family following their purchase of the estate lease in 1794, further altered around the 1860s by architect Fitzgibbon Louch, and comprehensively remodelled and extended again in 1907 by the Derry architect Albert Forman. The result is a layered composition of high-quality materials combining a late 18th century country house with early 20th century additions in a restrained French château manner. It is regarded as one of the finest architectural houses in the north-west of Ulster, and is notable historically as the residence of the agent of the Skinners' Company.

PRINCIPAL NORTH FAÇADE

The entrance front is seven bays wide, symmetrical, and two storeys high with an attic floor, basement, and steeply pitched roofs. The central five bays are smooth rendered and painted. At ground level, the central feature is a semi-circular arched doorway with side screens, flanked on each side by two twelve-pane double-hung sliding sash windows. The first floor repeats this arrangement with windows of lesser height. Directly above the doorway sits a tripartite window: a central twelve-pane double-hung sliding sash with an elliptical fanlight above, whose cills align with the flanking windows but whose fanlight rises above their heads. Neat bracketed lantern lights appear over the doorway and at the inner corners of the projecting end pavilions.

The projecting wide end bays, faced in coursed ashlar sandstone, each have a canted bay at ground floor level with a solid parapet bearing an Ogilby family coat of arms plaque, the moulded coping of the parapet curving slightly upwards over the heraldic symbol. Each canted bay contains three two-pane double-hung sliding sash windows, the central one considerably wider than those on the cant faces. Moulded stringcourses define the parapets. Above the canted bays, a large tripartite window with a semi-circular head contains a single-pane bottom sash and a nine-pane top sash. Three steps rise between the projecting end bays to a stone-flagged terrace before the entrance door and the central five bays. The terrace projects beyond the line of the end bays and has low parapets on either side of the entrance steps.

The roof has a straight parapet ridge terminating at each end against high pyramidal roofs over the end pavilions. These pyramidal roofs carry neat metal cresting on their short ridges with decorative metal finials. Over the central five-bay section, three large gabled dormers rise from slightly above gutter level, their fronts in plane with the wall below. Each dormer has a wide sash window with a lower sash of two panes and an upper sash of eighteen small square panes, flanked by broad fluted pilasters with scrolls rising from flat pedestals and supporting a deep plain frieze above the sash, over which sits a pedimented gable slightly narrower than the frieze. The pyramidal roofs of the pavilions each carry a single dormer of the same character. The roofs are neatly and subtly splayed out to the gutters, and above the central ridge the apex of the conical staircase tower roof is visible, with two large panelled-brickwork chimney stacks rising on either side.

EAST GABLE

The east gable is two bays wide, with twelve-pane sliding sash windows at ground level having exposed sash boxes — these are additional sashes formed externally to the inner sashes and fitted with broad plain architraves that serve as cover moulds to the projecting additional sashes. Above, similar but shorter windows repeat the pattern. Two dormers adorn the gable hips. The stonework is coursed rough ashlar sandstone with slightly projecting joints. The roof overhang is generous, with ogee guttering and a panelled soffit with scrolls between.

BACK RETURN (EAST SIDE)

The long wall of the back return runs in line with the east gable at a lower roofline. It is four bays long with similar ground-floor windows but without external sashes, and eight-pane sliding sash windows above, all lighting the ballroom within. The roof is low-pitched, slated, and hipped, with a leaded flat over the bay adjoining the main block — a deliberate device to avoid overshadowing the first-floor rear bedroom window. Ridge and hips are leaded. The stonework has varying course heights with flush smeared joints and overhangs less than the main block, its soffit supported on plain rectangular corbels. Ogee gutters and round downpipes contrast with the main block's rectangular downpipes, which have great moulded trunkheads into which swanneck pipes discharge. A straight joint between the main block gable and the return stonework is clearly visible, and the coursing does not match between the two phases of construction. The gable of the back return is one bay wide.

WEST CORNER AND REAR (SOUTH) ELEVATION

To the west corner of the back return, a wall projects sufficiently to allow a timber-framed conservatory with a flat roof to be constructed in the angle. The conservatory has a comparatively low sill with panelling below and art deco-like glazing above, incorporating a mixture of semi-circular astragals interspersed with small panes. A pair of doors gives access to the rear lawn. Above the conservatory, centred on the gable, is a tripartite window of ten panes with its head and cill aligned with the high-level windows on the east side. In the corner above the conservatory rises a tallish yellow brick chimney with two chimney ports, probably originally serving a second conservatory since removed as well as the existing one.

The rear or south elevation of the main block is entirely smooth rendered and dominated by the semi-circular staircase tower, which rises above the main ridge and is topped with a conical slated roof and a restrained lead capping. A door from the top of the tower gives access to a flat roof extending between the two great chimney stacks. The main ridges are in fact two — one to the north and one to the south — a device that creates an interesting and satisfactory roofline. To the west of the tower and short of the gable is a rectangular projection containing toilets and related accommodation, rising high above the soffit line with its flat roof level with the tower eaves. A solid parapet fills the gap between this projection and the tower. To the east of the tower the eaves return to their two-storey height and the slated roof is exposed in the same plane as that over the east pavilion, with a single similar dormer on the pavilion roof. Between the rectangular toilet block and the circular tower, at ground floor level, a lean-to roof covers a connecting corridor linking kitchen, dining room and servants' stairs, with an external door. An additional smaller chimney rises with the rectangular toilet block.

The rear elevation presents a great variety of square-headed sliding sash windows, some small-paned and some large-paned, together with two round-headed windows, one segmental window, and two stained-glass windows. The windows on the circular tower follow the line of the spiral stair within.

WEST GABLE

The west gable is three bays wide and three floors high, the lowest being the basement, which has a narrow area in front of it. At basement level are two round-headed door openings and one semi-circular window, giving access to barrel-vaulted small compartments that are interconnected with one another. The architraves of the arches are decorated with egg-and-dart and filleted astragal mouldings. At ground level are three round-headed twelve-pane sliding sash windows — two lighting the morning room, one lighting the servants' stairs. At first-floor level are three square-headed twelve-pane sliding sash windows. The roofline of the main façade returns on this gable and along the rear elevation, terminating against the toilet block. Above the roofline a single centrally-placed dormer matches the others but is narrower. The south-west roof arrangement is acknowledged as slightly untidy, with the toilet block, dormer and chimney rather crowded together. The west gable is faced in stone matching the main front pavilions.

INTERIOR

The house has good internal spaces creating considerable architectural excitement. The entrance hall was revamped in 1907. The principal staircase includes a stained-glass window bearing the monogram and date of James Ogilby, 1882, added following a fire in 1880. The circular staircase tower clearly predates the 1907 work, though the detail of the stairs and the raising of the tower were carried out at that time. The ballroom, attributed to Fitzgibbon Louch's work of around the 1860s, is lit by the windows of the back return. The basement contains barrel-vaulted compartments accessed from the west gable.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

The central portion of the house was probably built in the early 18th century by the Cary family. The estate lease was purchased by Ogilby in 1794 for £10,000. When the lease expired in 1803, Ogilby obtained an extension on payment of £25,000 and an annual rent of £1,500 to the Skinners' Company. It was probably at this time that Ogilby improved the house by adding single-storey pavilions to the east and west, built in ashlar sandstone with large arched windows set in recesses on the north-facing hipped gables — a treatment echoed in the north gate lodges on the Ballyquin Road. G.V. Sampson's Statistical Survey of the County of Londonderry of 1802 refers to Robert Ogilby's mansion at Pellipar as having an annual value of £2,500, and also notes that "the environs of Dungiven have lately been decorated [by planting] by Mr Leslie Ogilby." The Ogilbys were much involved in the linen business around Limavady in 1782. Griffith's Valuation of 1858 gives a valuation for Pellipar inclusive of gate lodges and Steward's house of £80. The Ordnance Survey map of 1832 shows a long back return in line with the east gable; by the 1858 revision this is shown as shorter in length.

Architect Fitzgibbon Louch was engaged at Pellipar around the 1860s, and it is likely that the ballroom dates from this period and that its roof was subsequently altered to allow the addition of a further floor to the pavilions in 1907. In 1880 the house was damaged by fire, but the then-occupant James Ogilby reinstated the building promptly and appears to have added the stained-glass window at the main stair and the entrance door, both bearing his monogram and dated 1882.

In 1907, the Derry architect Albert Forman carried out extensive improvements. The pavilions received additional floors including the attic floor over the entire house; the whole house was reroofed with steep pitches; the conical form was given to the tower, which was raised; the entrance hall was revamped; gable windows were adjusted; and the arched upper portions of the original single-storey pavilion windows were raised to first-floor level. It was at this stage that the French château character of the overall composition was established.

In 1880 the house was damaged by fire. The house was occupied during the Second World War by the War Department. The Ogilbys sold their estates in 1956, when the present owners purchased the house and the adjoining 166 hectares. The present owners subsequently demolished the servants' accommodation to the rear of the building and part of the adjoining outbuildings, and removed a conservatory to make way for the present kitchen. The rear of the building has undergone further changes in the later 20th century. The flat roof has been recently recovered in sheet butyl. The whole of the interior has been tastefully decorated and furnished by the present owners and the principal façades remain intact.

SETTING AND GROUNDS

The house stands in extensive grounds of approximately 166 hectares, mostly pasture with some woodland, set adjacent to the River Roe to the west. To the front, a sweep of lawn beyond the driveway is separated from the meadow to the north by a hedge, with middle-distance farmland and Benbradagh on the skyline forming a pleasing landscape. Various avenues formerly approached the house, served by several gate lodges; however, these avenues are somewhat compromised by having been treated as agricultural access roads and finished in grant-aided concrete. The principal avenue is currently not in use.

To the rear, between the circular tower and the toilet block, a servants' wing has been demolished. To the south, outbuildings once formed an enclosed yard, part of which has been removed and replaced by a steel-framed corrugated iron shed. To the west is a long single-storey coachhouse with three pointed arches, returning at right angles to join the former enclosed yard buildings. An archway, now ruinous, once gave access to further outbuildings a short distance away. A small enclosed walled fruit garden to the south is now derelict. To the south-west, among the trees, are two Second World War walled ammunition dumps.