Brookhall, 65 Culmore Road, Londonderry, BT48 8JE

Brookhall is a pleasant and interesting mid-Georgian country house with early Victorian alterations that give it a Regency-style appearance. Built in the late 18th century, most likely in the 1780s or 1790s, it is superbly sited overlooking the River Foyle and surrounded by well-landscaped grounds with a fine winding avenue approach. The grounds contain a notable arboretum with tree specimens from various parts of the world.

EXTERIOR

The house is a two-storey, double-pile structure with a small two-storey return on the north side, finished in smooth render. It has a part-slated, part-flat roof with large bow bays, a verandah with metal trellis, and a basement extending under the greater part of the building.

The entrance elevation is single-storey at the front, with a flat roof, abutting the full-length two-storey section behind. At its centre is a double panelled doorway with a rectangular fanlight, sheltered by a projecting flat-roofed portico supported on four pairs of Roman Doric columns resting on oversized bases in a tetrastyle arrangement. On either side of the doorway are round-headed niches without statues, and beyond these, single Wyatt-style sliding sash windows with twenty panes each, flanked in turn by further matching niches. A plinth runs across the full width of the façade, aligned with the window and niche sills and with the tops of the column bases. Above this, a continuous string course marks a solid parapet that is returned along the sides but becomes openwork in the middle, decorated with a Guilloche pattern. The solid portions of the parapet have a small central blocking piece with a shield, and corner blocks, with the parapet top forming a gentle downward curve between them. On either side of the door there are black fish sculptures, and a pull brass doorbell is fixed in the wall. Both door leaves carry two rectangular panels above and below, with an octagonal panel between.

Behind the parapet, the flat roof covers the single-storey front section. The two-storey section behind it is seven bays wide with a three-bay bowed breakfront, expressed in the roof slating. The windows are twelve-pane sliding sashes, all consistent. At each far corner there are tall rendered and panelled chimney stacks. On the flat roof there is a central glazed dome lighting an inner porch, and a second smaller glazed dome lighting an inner room referred to as a gallery.

A wing screen wall projects from the south-west corner, providing privacy to the south garden terrace and screening the former glasshouse. This wall has two small windows that are somewhat out of character with the rest of the building, and a double door.

The south elevation presents the gable end of both the flat-roofed front section and the two-storey east-facing part. The two-storey gable is almost entirely occupied by a bow bay three bays wide, with three tall eighteen-pane sliding sash windows at ground floor and three shorter nine-pane sliding sash windows directly above them. The verandah, which runs along the east front, is returned along this south gable and continues just past the tall eighteen-pane sliding sash window that lights the gallery.

The east elevation, which looks down over the River Foyle, is five bays wide with a central bowed bay matching that on the entrance front. The verandah extends across the entire east side, following the profile of the bowed bay. On both the south and east fronts, the verandah adds considerable charm and picturesqueness to the façade. It is supported on projecting walls with its outer edge following the bay profiles. The roof is a slated skirt supported on a metal trellis with pairs of slim columns spaced to frame the windows behind, with segmental arches filled with metal tracery. Beneath the verandah, echoing the window positions above, there is a row of large square six-pane sliding sash windows with reeded architraves all round. The central one is in fact a door to the basement, with stone steps leading down to it. A small two-pane sliding sash window lights a toilet. The wing screen wall is interposed between this and the rest of the south side. Steps at each end of the verandah lead down to the terraced lawns, which change level from south to east. The hipped slated roof expresses each bay, and there are two chimney stacks on the ridges. The slates on the bay roofs are graduated smalls. Cast-iron guttering and downpipes are fitted throughout.

The north side return projects northward, with its west wall set back from the entrance front. Its ground floor level is considerably lower than the main floor, and a flight of external steps runs along it. It has a pitched slated roof with a single chimney stack rising from the ridge. The north elevation looks out over a partially sunken court, which drops further to a service road or lane. The side return has two small four-pane sliding sash windows at each floor, a glazed panel door leading to a platform that continues the verandah on the north side, and under this platform a door giving access to the basement with two windows alongside. This side also has four sliding sash windows and one tiny window. A new brick flue has been erected just above the eaves on this side.

SETTING AND GROUNDS

The house is approached by a long winding avenue descending through a pleasing landscape planted with both native and exotic trees. The garden is laid out as a series of stepped terraces of lawn, the lowest of which ends in a ha-ha with a concealed metal fence below. Further downhill is a walled garden divided into three sections containing interesting plant specimens; the southern section is managed by Derry City Council and has its own road access. At the river's edge there is a quay named after Sir George Fitzgerald Hill, Baronet, Member of Parliament, the man believed to have carried out significant improvements to the house. Nearby is also an icehouse. The screen wall to the west formerly had a conservatory against its east side.

HISTORY

A house stood on this site in the first half of the 18th century and belonged to the Wray family. The property was acquired by the Hill family at around the middle of that century. Hugh Hill was Member of Parliament for the constituency from 1768 until his death in 1795, and he is believed to have built the present two-storey section of the house, which extended to the north — a connection that may explain why a fanlighted doorway survives in what is now the kitchen. His son, Sir George Fitzgerald Hill, became Member of Parliament in 1797 and carried out various improvements to the property. He was a Privy Councillor and Vice-Treasurer for Ireland from 1817, and was subsequently appointed Governor of Trinidad, where he died in 1839. It was Sir George Hill who identified the Irish republican Wolfe Tone at Buncrana, the two men having been contemporaries at Trinity College. Sir George also built the quay at the river's edge.

The Ordnance Survey map of 1832 shows the house with two bays on the east front, making it longer than the present building. The Griffith Valuation Book of 1831 records Henry Barré Beresford as lessee, with a valuation of £76. It is thought that Beresford carried out alterations to the house around 1840, at which time the east front was shortened and the single-storey west front was added, giving the building its current Regency character.

The Valuation Book of 1858 records Samuel Gilliland as lessee, with Lady Hill as lessor, and a valuation of £80. The Gilliland family has resided in the house since the mid-19th century. Samuel Gilliland was a Londonderry merchant who erected the Rock Flour Mills in the mid-19th century. Commander Gilliland, a later member of the family, created the arboretum and improved the walled garden. The house has been reslated in recent years.