Aberfoyle House

Aberfoyle House is a detached, symmetrical three-bay, two-storey over basement, stucco-fronted Italianate former house, built around 1845 and originally known as Richmond House. It was constructed for David Watt, a local distiller whose firm, Watt & Co., had been established on Abbey Street in 1834 and continued to operate from the Bogside until 1920. The house underwent extensive remodelling around 1876–1879, which gave it its current Italianate appearance and cruciform plan, including a two-storey with attic return to the rear. These works were carried out for Bartholomew McCorkell, of the local shipping firm William McCorkell & Co., which provided passage for emigrants between Ireland and America. The building is now located within the grounds of the University of Ulster's Magee Campus and is used as offices and seminar rooms. It sits on an elevated, steeply sloping site on the west side of Strand Road, accessed via a long, winding tarmac avenue that opens onto Strand Road to the southeast.

Architectural Character and Exterior

The house faces east and is cruciform on plan. The roofs are hipped natural slate with roll-moulded lead ridges and valleys and rendered profiled chimney-stacks. Moulded cast-iron guttering to the overhanging eaves is supported on paired brackets and discharges to cast-iron downpipes. The external walls are finished in painted ruled-and-lined render with a projecting plinth course, a continuous cornice over the ground floor, and a moulded string course over the first-floor windows.

Original single-pane timber sash windows are retained throughout, with slender ogee horns and some historic glass surviving. First-floor windows are set in segmental-headed openings with recessed apron panels; ground-floor windows are square-headed and set on a continuous sill course.

The symmetrical three-bay front elevation has a pair of full-height three-sided canted bay windows flanking the central entrance bay. The shouldered door opening has a moulded architrave surround with a keystone and houses original double-leaf woodgrained doors with diamond-faced panels. These open onto a sandstone step and concrete platform supporting an elaborate cast-iron verandah, of which the roof covering is missing. Four concrete steps descend from the platform, flanked by low sandstone plinth walls with copings.

The south side elevation is three bays wide with the basement partially exposed. To the left of this elevation is a full-height three-sided canted projecting bay window, and to the right a ground-floor-over-basement canted bay window. The north side elevation mirrors the south, with a large projecting bay to the right and no bay window to the left.

The rear elevation is abutted by a four-bay, two-storey with attic rendered return. This has a pitched natural slate roof with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles, rendered chimney-stacks, and lead-lined bonneted dormers with round-arched windows. A large chimney-stack rises from the rear west gable of the return, with a pair of diminutive round-headed window openings at attic level. The ground floor of the return opens onto a sunken paved area with a rubblestone retaining wall to the north and a modern concrete retaining wall to the west.

Interior

The interior displays a wealth of decorative plaster and joinery detailing more commonly associated with civic buildings of the period. Of particular note is the unusual fretwork balustrade to the imperial staircase.

Historical Development

The Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1848–49 depicted Richmond House as a square-shaped building with a gate lodge at the Strand Road entrance, also built around 1845. Earlier mapping from the Annual Revisions Town Plan of around 1873–1910 records that, prior to the 1879 extension, the house had only two bay windows: the ground-floor bay window on the south elevation and the two-storey bay at the north-east corner.

David Watt leased the site from a Mr Millar, and the mansion and gate lodge were originally valued at £58. Watt continued to reside at Richmond House until his death in 1876, when the property was purchased by Bartholomew McCorkell. McCorkell carried out the extensive alterations that gave the house its current form: the original façade was remodelled with the installation of two further bay windows, and the two-storey extension was added to the west side, creating the cruciform plan. He also constructed the gate lodge at the Northland Road entrance. The value of the house was subsequently raised to £110, with the Strand Road gate lodge individually valued at £2. McCorkell resided at Richmond until his death in 1887, after which the house remained with the McCorkell family. In 1895 it passed to his daughter Elizabeth, who had married Robert Corscaden of Boomhall. The 1911 census described Richmond as a first-class dwelling of 30 rooms, with two stables and a store among its outbuildings, located at a coach house on the Northland Road. On Robert Corscaden's death in 1904 the house passed to his widow Elizabeth, who remained there until her death in 1922. Her nephew Herbert Collum, a Lieutenant-Colonel, then took possession, and on his death in 1929 the house was sold to Sir Basil McFarland, a local magistrate and baronet. McFarland already resided in the neighbouring mansion to the north-west — a two-storey sandstone square-plan dwelling erected between 1856 and 1860 to designs by Londonderry's County Surveyor Stewart Gordon (d. 1860), and originally known as Aberfoyle. Upon acquiring Richmond in 1929, McFarland renamed it Aberfoyle House, and the original Aberfoyle was renamed Talbot House. The original Aberfoyle House is now demolished.

During the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the total rateable value of Aberfoyle House and its two gate lodges was set at £175. By the end of the Second Revaluation (1956–72) this had been reduced to £160. In 1970 the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society described the house as "a two-storey large residence standing in its own grounds, which makes a handsome contribution to the Strand Road area." Sir Basil McFarland continued to reside at Aberfoyle House until his death in 1986. The property was sold to Derry City Council in 1990, listed in the same year, and acquired by the University of Ulster in 1998, when it was converted into classroom and seminar facilities for Magee's Faculty of Social Sciences. Aberfoyle House and its former gate lodge were included in the Magee Conservation Area in 2006.

Gate Lodge and Entrance Features

Two gate lodges mark the original entrances to the property. The lodge at the Strand Road entrance, built around 1845, is square on plan, facing north, and is now abutted to the east and west by modern extensions carried out in 2000–01. The external fabric of the original lodge has been largely replaced, including the render and windows, and the entrance has been relocated to the adjoining extension. However, the pyramidal roof form and the diagonally-set chimney stack broaching off a square base survive. A photograph dated around 1980 records that the lodge originally comprised a central single-storey block with a single-storey range extending from its west gable, and that the lodge continued to be occupied as a private dwelling until at least 1993. The renovation of 2000–01 resulted in the loss of most original features. Since September 2001 the lodge has been used as a Holistic Health Centre.

The Strand Road entrance itself is formed by a pair of rock-faced concrete block screen walls, each retaining original sandstone ashlar pillars that were moved during renovations. The southern pillar retains an original cast-iron hinge in the form of a fist; the original cast-iron carriage gates have been removed.

Further along Strand Road to the northeast sits a gate screen that belonged to the original Aberfoyle House, now demolished. This comprises impressive square ashlar sandstone pillars with pyramidal caps, flanked by rubble stone walling on an S-plan with sandstone coping. It is now incorporated within the university campus.

The second gate lodge, at the Northland Road entrance, was constructed by Bartholomew McCorkell and is listed separately.

Setting and Group Value

Aberfoyle House forms part of a collection of 19th-century structures dispersed throughout the Magee Campus that together contribute significant interest to the Magee Conservation Area.