Camus (AKA The Grange), 42 Lisky Road, Strabane, Co Tyrone, BT82 8NR

Camus (also known as The Grange) is a detached three-bay, two-storey over basement Georgian house, built in 1832 as a rectory (glebe house) for the parish of Camus-juxta-Mourne, and situated on the east side of Lisky Road, Strabane, County Tyrone. It stands in the townland of Bearney Glebe and is currently in private residential use. The listing covers the house, outbuildings, and walling.

ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION

The house is rectangular on plan. Its roof is hipped natural slate with blue/black clay ridge tiles over a corbelled eaves course. The rendered chimneys are smooth-finished and retain their original clay pots. External walls are roughcast over a smooth rendered plinth, and rainwater goods are cast-iron half-round gutters with round downpipes.

Windows throughout are square-headed timber-framed sliding sash: 6/6 panes at ground floor and 3/6 panes at first floor, all with painted masonry sills.

The principal elevation faces east. At ground floor level, a central round-arched-headed recessed entrance opening is reached via five tiled steps leading to a raised veranda with a smooth rendered retaining wall. The entrance itself comprises an original square-headed six-panelled timber door flanked by sidelights and surmounted by a frieze and a segmental-arched-headed fanlight. The left and right bays each contain a single window set within a smooth rendered recessed round-arched-headed niche. The first floor has three windows.

The south elevation is abutted at the left by the later extension and at the right by the flat-roofed extension. The exposed section at basement level contains an original vertically-sheeted timber door with a transom light at the left and a single window (now blocked) at the right, accessed via sandstone steps with a timber handrail and wrought-iron railing.

The west elevation contains five windows at each floor, with the end bay at the right contained within the extension. The north elevation has two windows at each floor and a single 6/6 sliding sash window at basement level on the left.

EXTENSIONS AND LATER ALTERATIONS

The house was extended on two occasions after its original construction. A two-storey extension was added to the south-west around 1850. This extension has a half-hipped roof to its east end. Its south elevation is abutted at ground floor level by a uPVC conservatory added around 1990; the exposed section is otherwise blank. Its west elevation is abutted at the right by the flat-roofed extension; the exposed section at the left contains a single window at ground and first floor, with a plain glazed window at basement level, and a vertically-sheeted timber entrance door at the right at basement level.

A further two-storey flat-roofed extension was added around 1860 to the re-entrant angle. This extension is supported at basement level on a cast-iron column and contains 2/2 and 2/4 sliding sash windows at ground floor; at first floor there is a 1/1 sliding sash window containing leaded stained glass, flanked at the right by a 4/4 sliding sash window.

Despite these additions, the extensions have been well incorporated and the garden frontage (west elevation) presents a uniform appearance. The uPVC conservatory of around 1990 detracts from the building.

Internally, the house retains much of its original character. The typical late-Georgian three-bay plan form — with a central hall leading to principal rooms on each floor — appears to have been partially altered, most likely in connection with the extensions of around 1850–60. The position of the stair was probably changed at that time to a location perpendicular to the principal entrance, giving access to the rooms within the southern extension. This internal reorganisation may account for the increases in rateable valuation recorded around that period.

OUTBUILDINGS AND SETTING

The house is set within mature gardens. To the south lies an enclosed yard, bounded to the east by rubble walling and accessed through a pair of square roughcast piers supporting a pair of modern steel gates. On the south side of the yard stands a multi-bay two-storey outbuilding with a central gabled bay containing a segmental-headed carriage arch. Its roof is pitched natural slate with blue/black ridge tiles; walls are painted rubble with cast-iron wall-ties; windows are square-headed timber-framed sliding sash with brick voussoirs; and the building has vertically-sheeted timber doors at both ground and first floor level. The yard is enclosed to the west by a lean-to timber-framed garage whose rear wall is a rubble boundary wall.

The site is accessed from the road to the west through a pair of square stone pillars (the gatelodge was replaced around 2000 and is of no architectural interest). The site is bounded on all sides by hedging and mature trees, with a formal rose garden to the west.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The glebe house is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832–3. By the second edition of 1855 it is captioned 'Bearney Glebe House' with formal gardens shown adjacent to the property. The 1905 map captions it 'Camus' and shows a lodge to the west; the lodge also appears on the fourth edition of 1951.

Historical records document that as late as 1806 there was no glebe house for the parish. The property is recorded in the Townland Valuation as a 'dwelling, cellar as dwelling and offices', with the original occupier listed as the Reverend George, later revised to James Smithwick, at a valuation of £21 15s. Samuel Lewis, writing in his Topographical Dictionary of Ireland in 1837, confirms that "the glebe-house was built by aid of a gift of £100 and a loan of £800 from the late Board of First Fruits, in 1832, upon the townland of Bierney, which constitutes the glebe, comprising 300 acres, and is more than three miles from the church." Griffith's Valuation of 1858 lists the Reverend James Smithwick (later revised to Smith) as occupier, holding from the Lord Bishop of Derry, at a valuation originally set at £18 and revised to £24 15s. A marginal note in the valuation records observes that "the offices being cold and in bad repair… the house is a good house worth at least £20 for it cost at the lowest estimate £1,000 to build it."

Valuation Revision records show the occupier subsequently as William Alexander, with the valuation rising to £28 and then revised to £34 in 1862, the same year a gate-lodge was added. The property then passed to the Reverend Mervyn Wilson, then to the Church Representative Body in 1877, to the Reverend A. H. Delap in 1895, and to Alexander Charles Kennedy in 1896. The property was vacant after that date until 1903, when John Claudius Herdman is recorded as occupier, with the house and offices valued at £32 and the lodge at £2.

The Reverend William Alexander (1824–1911) and his wife Cecil Frances Alexander lived at Camus from 1860. Mrs Alexander was a celebrated hymn-writer, responsible for the words to hymns including "There is a Green Hill Far Away", "Once in Royal David's City", and "All Things Bright and Beautiful". During the family's residence at Camus, many of her hymns were included in Hymns Ancient and Modern, edited by Sir Henry Baker, through which they gained wide renown. William Alexander was later Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, and subsequently Archbishop of Armagh. During the Alexanders' time at Camus, the Church of Ireland was disestablished, and the laity of the parish purchased the rectory and some of the land. In 1894, when the then incumbent, the Reverend Alex H. Delap, indicated he did not wish to live there, the church resolved to sell the glebe. An offer of £1,050 from Colonel Clark-Kennedy of Blackheath, London was accepted in 1895.

John Claudius Herdman, the next recorded occupier from 1903, was the son of Emerson Tennant Herdman, who together with his brother was responsible for much of the architectural and industrial development of Sion Mills. John Claudius Herdman and his wife Maud Harriet Clark-Kennedy had three children at Camus before the family returned to Sion House in 1919 on the death of his father. They briefly returned to Camus during a period of financial difficulty in the 1930s.