'Derryowen', 43 Coshquin Road, Londonderry, Co. Londonderry, BT48 ONF

Derryowen, 43 Coshquin Road, Londonderry

Derryowen is a detached two-storey Arts and Crafts house built around 1907, situated in the townland of Coshquin to the north-west of the city of Londonderry, with the River Foyle to the east. It is the third known dwelling on a site occupied since at least the early 19th century. The architect is unknown, but the building is well proportioned and carefully composed, combining half-timbered gables, canted bay windows, distinctive multi-paned sliding sash windows and tapered chimney stacks to create a house that is generous in size yet remains domestic in scale. The exterior retains its original character throughout, and inside both the plan form and a substantial quantity of well-crafted fixtures and fittings survive. The gate piers and boundary walling on the Buncrana Road, the crenellated walling separating the driveway from the yard, and the two-storey gabled outbuilding thought to be a former stable all add further interest and, together with the mature setting surrounding the house, significantly enhance its character.

Form and exterior

The house has an irregular plan with three interconnecting gabled ranges under a pitched natural slate roof. All external walls are rough-cast rendered and painted white, with black-painted masonry cills, half-timbering, eaves, window and door reveals and rainwater goods. Two tall rough-cast rendered tapered chimney stacks with cornices rise from the roofline, and the ridge is dressed with decorative toothed terracotta tiles and terracotta finials at each apex. The gable ends are treated with half-timbering carried on small carved timber support brackets, with plain wide timber fascia boards and soffits. Rainwater is collected in half-round cast-iron guttering discharging to circular painted cast-iron downpipes, though a small number of sections have been replaced in uPVC.

Unless otherwise noted, all windows are timber sliding sashes with horns, having single panes to the lower lights and small multi-panes to the upper lights.

North-east elevation (principal front)

The principal elevation faces north-east and is two bays wide with a further projecting two-storey gabled bay to the left. A canted bay window sits on either side of the entrance doorway, each with a slated hipped roof; the roof of the right-hand bay extends to provide shelter over the entrance. First-floor windows are square-headed and aligned above the ground-floor bays.

The principal entrance is approached via two painted concrete steps and leads to a square-headed timber door. The door has two panelled lower sections with bolection moulding and a single glazed upper pane with coloured leaded glass, which is repeated in the transom light above; the whole is set within a plain architrave surround. An original brass doorbell sits to the right in a smooth rendered surround painted black. Immediately to the right of the entrance, a squat square-plan pillar set at the outer corner of the lower step is decorated with simple fluting on all four vertical faces.

South-east elevation

This elevation is three bays wide with a further projecting two-storey gabled bay to the left, whose lower wall section has chamfered corners. The projecting bay has paired square-headed windows at ground-floor level and two square-headed windows at first-floor level; its gable has half-timbering with plain wide painted timber fascia board and soffit. The remaining fenestration on this elevation is irregular. A large tapered chimney stack set left of centre punctures the roof just above eaves level, with a stepped cornice supporting its cap and four clay pots. A single-storey half-canted bay with a hipped slate roof adjoins the projecting gabled bay and the main elevation. Beyond it, two small narrow windows sit to the right of the chimney stack, with two windows at first-floor level — one to the left and one to the far right. The small ground-floor windows are 4/4 timber sliding sashes; the windows to the canted bay have been replaced with side-hung casements with fixed small multi-paned lights above, matching the upper sashes elsewhere on the house.

South-west elevation

This elevation faces on to the enclosed yard and presents the flank ends of three gabled forms, each separated by a step in plan. The main part sits to the right with a central tapered chimney stack matching that on the south-east elevation, two windows, and a door positioned off-centre to its left. Stepped back to the right is the end of a tall gabled toilet block with two windows near the inside corner and the remains of a cast-iron water pump opposite. Stepped back again is the return face of the north-west half-timbered gable, which is blank except for a drainpipe and a short chimney stack centred on its eaves. The square-headed door opening within the main part contains a vertically sheeted timber door with decorative ironmongery and a plain glazed transom light over. To the right of the door, a single-storey lean-to of painted red brick abuts the building; its roof is clad in profiled plastic panels made to resemble terracotta tiles and it faces on to a semi-sunken yard with concrete hard-standing. The outbuilding is divided in two: the section nearest the house contains a wood-pellet boiler in a former coal house, and the other side is used as a store and retains an original electrical board.

North-west elevation

This elevation consists of two half-timbered gables stepped in plan, with a further tall, narrow gable in the re-entrant corner between them. The left-hand gable end is abutted by a crenellated painted red brick wall; at ground-floor level to its left are two narrow square-headed windows, with two more above at first-floor level, not aligned with those below. The right-hand gable is otherwise blank except for one window at ground-floor level near the inside corner, half-timbering, and a clay ball finial at the apex of its projecting fascia board. The tall central gable has clipped eaves and contains a square-headed doorway at ground-floor level and a small timber sliding sash window with 3/1 panes at first-floor level.

Setting and outbuildings

The main entrance is currently approached from the Buncrana Road, where a pair of rendered gate pillars with white-painted curved walling and black-painted pyramidal caps flank a pair of decorative cast-iron replacement gates. The name DERRYOWEN is indented into the right-hand pillar and highlighted in black. The gates open on to a long tree-lined avenue leading to the house. The site also opens on to the Coshquin Road at the south-west, where a range of brick and rubble-stone outbuildings encloses a yard. Black-painted steel double gates hung on square rendered white pillars with black pyramidal caps give direct access from the Coshquin Road. These pillars are flanked by walls supporting simple single-storey lean-to structures that are open to the elements on the opposite side, where a timber eaves beam spans between circular cast-iron columns and the roof is covered in corrugated metal sheeting.

The two-storey gabled block with a natural slate roof, thought to be a stable block that pre-dates the current house, has informally arranged square-headed window and door openings. The largest opening is a double doorway, though a segmental arch formed in a triple row of headers above it suggests the opening has been altered. All walls of the outbuildings are painted white, with sheeted timber doors, window shutters and cast-iron rainwater goods on drive-through brackets picked out in black. The north-west gable of the stable block is abutted by a one-and-a-half-storey addition with corrugated sheet roofing and a single opening served by a straight flight of concrete steps. The remainder of the yard is enclosed by painted white walling, connected to the main building at the north-west side where a further set of gate posts flanked by crenellated walling support a simple metal farm gate, and at the south-west side where the walling meets a single-storey abutment.

History

The site dates to at least the early 19th century. The first Ordnance Survey map of 1830 shows buildings on the site, all of which are now demolished. The contemporary Townland Valuation of around 1831 recorded a single-storey, thatched building of medium age measuring 37 feet by 21.6 feet, described as a 2B class structure — slightly decayed but still in good repair — along with a store, a barn and stables. The farm was valued at £3 4 shillings in the 1830s when it was occupied by a Mr Dysart, a local farmer. No discernible change to the layout was evident on the second Ordnance Survey map of 1848–52. Griffith's Valuation of 1856 recorded the occupant as Mr Robert Dysart and noted that the site value had fallen to £2. The Annual Revisions record that a two-storey house was constructed on the site in 1884, measuring 13.3 feet by 8 feet and increasing the total farm value to £8; the two-storey outbuilding to the south-west was most likely built at the same time.

The Census of Ireland records that Robert Dysart continued to live at Coshquin until at least 1901, when he shared the house with his sister and her husband, George and Annie Rodgers. The 1901 census building return described the farmhouse as a second-class slated dwelling with six rooms and several outbuildings including a stable, three cow houses, a dairy and a barn.

The original dwellings on the site were demolished around 1907 when John Carlin, a local cattle trader, came into possession of the property and commissioned the current Arts and Crafts house. The Annual Revisions first recorded the new dwelling in 1907, when it increased the farm's total value to £16. The 1911 census described the new farmhouse as a second-class dwelling with ten rooms and outbuildings comprising a stable, cow house, fowl house and turf house. John Carlin purchased the property outright from Lord Templemore in 1916 and continued to live at Coshquin until his death around 1924, when his relative Andrew Carlin took possession. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the farm was revalued at £14 15 shillings. Andrew Carlin also held a house on Beechwood Avenue in Derry, where he died in 1947. His widow Catherine continued to own the Coshquin property into the 1970s but did not reside there herself. From the 1950s the farm was occupied by a Mrs Margaret K. McGilloway, and by the end of the Second Revaluation (1956–72) the total rateable value stood at £23 15 shillings.

The house was described by Calley as follows: "Edwardian Arts and Crafts-style house. It is made up of three two-storey intertwined gabled ranges, white washed with plain, slightly battered sided corniced chimneys. There is timber work in some of the gable-ends and the windows have single pane lower lights, many small pane upper lights. Part of its garden walls are crenelated adding further charm which combined with its outbuildings and very well-tended two-tier gardens makes this one of the best small country houses in the neighbourhood."

The house suffered damage as a result of the Buncrana Road checkpoint bomb in October 1990. The stained leaded glass in the front door was replaced following the explosion to match the existing — though the current owner believes it was fitted upside-down — and some windows that were blown out were also replaced. The house was formerly powered by hydro-electricity, with water drawn from a small reservoir fed by a spring. The generator board from this system survives and is wall-mounted within one of the outbuildings attached to the south-east of the house.