Ballynagard House, Culmore Road, Londonderry

Ballynagard House is a substantial late Georgian country house built in the late 1850s and extended in the mid Victorian period. It retains Georgian style characteristics despite its asymmetrical facades creating an incongruous composition. The house stands on an elevated site with a magnificent panoramic setting overlooking the River Foyle and Lough Foyle, recently landscaped with terraces, low walls and planting. Access is by a long sweeping avenue from Culmore Road, where there is a gate lodge and gates.

The house is constructed as a large two-storey double pile building, five bays wide on the entrance front. It is built of random rubble schist trimmed with red brick, with bays entirely of red brick. Natural slate covers the pitched roofs with red ridge tiles, while the canted bay has lead hips and ridge, and the bows have graduated natural slates.

The entrance facade faces east and is a two-storey gabled block, five bays long. The fanlighted entrance is asymmetrically placed at the south side, featuring a wide segmental fanlight with radiating astragals, side screens glazed on the upper portions, panelled pilasters, cornice and six-panelled door. The next bay to the north is a large two-storey canted bay faced with red brick, containing 18-pane sliding sash windows in each facet of the ground floor and 12-pane windows above. The next two bays on each floor have similar sliding sash windows in 12 and 9 panes respectively. The walls of the main facade are built of random schist stonework with brick trim to doors and windows and brick quoins.

From the south gable projects a single two-storey bay with much lower eaves and smaller sliding sash windows of 12 panes on the ground floor and nine panes on the first floor. On the gable of this bay a red brick semi-circular bow contains three sliding sash 12-pane windows on the ground floor and nine-pane windows above. On the north gable a similar bow matches the higher eaves line with the same window arrangement. The two-storey single bay has smooth rendered walls with windows brick-trimmed, brick quoins and double brick eaves course.

The south side contains a stone-built random rubble two-storey block returning three bays long with three sliding sash windows at first floor. A large conservatory projects from the ground floor, which mars the character of this elevation. On the north side, a two-storey block also returns, built of random rubble schist and brick trim to windows and brick quoins. A large round-headed window lights a secondary staircase with a doorway below it. The south gable has two sliding sash windows on ground and first floors with plaster reveals. The roof is slated and hipped with red hip and ridge tiles, with two smooth rendered chimneys on the ridge.

The west side comprises a mixture of different two-storey buildings with a lean-to roof against the double pile gable and a large single-storey return containing the kitchen. Most walls on this side are smooth rendered with brick trim. One large round-headed window lights the main staircase.

The interior is a complete reconstruction following fire damage and vandalism prior to the present owner's purchase in the late 1980s. Extensive renovation works were carried out in 1993 by architect Edward Kerr with builder O'Neill Bros.

Behind the house to the west are detached outbuildings forming a grassed courtyard. These are also of rubble schist construction and are largely intact. Some of these outbuildings, facing onto the grass courtyard, have a pleasing symmetrical arrangement. There is a central higher block three bays wide with an arcade of bricked-up arches on the ground floor. Walls are built of random rubble schist trimmed with red brick. Some pitched roofs are slated while others are covered with corrugated asbestos.

The fine group of outbuildings to the rear merits protection and forms an important group value with the main house. These largely intact structures include two gate lodges: one at the north more recently built in the 1850s, and one to the south at the present avenue entrance from Culmore Road dating to circa 1830.

Ballynagard House was formerly the property of the Hart family, who have been established in the district since the late 16th century and also possessed Kilderry House at Muff, County Donegal and Doe Castle, County Donegal. A house was shown on the 1830 Ordnance Survey map with extensive outbuildings, part of which still stands forming the service enclosed courtyard to the rear of the present property. Griffith's Valuation of 1858 lists George V Hart as lessor and William Campbell as occupant, with a valuation of £45 including the house, gate houses and two labourers' houses. The two gate lodges can be identified, though the labourers' houses cannot. Before the Hart family sold the property, it contained a handsome library. The property was sold in the late 1970s to a consortium. The present owner purchased the property in the late 1980s, though the consortium retained the north gate lodge. The architect of the present house, dating from the late 1850s, remains unknown. The bold canted two-storey bay is similar to that at Boomhall, thought to date from the late 18th century, indicating the retention of earlier design influences in its Georgian-style execution.