Rock Lodge, 29 Lindesayville Road, Tullyhogue, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, BT80 8UH

Rock Lodge is a detached three-bay, two-storey house built around 1830, set in open countryside adjacent to the Killymoon River in Tullyhogue, County Tyrone. It has historical associations with the Lindsay family of Loughry, the major local landowners, who used it for much of the 19th century as a residence for family members. The building has been extensively modernised and has lost part of its original outbuildings, which detracts from its original character.

The house is roughly rectangular in plan and faces southeast, sitting back from the road at an oblique angle within its own grounds. To the rear is a two-storey gable-ended central return, flanked by two hipped-roofed extensions running parallel to the main house. Behind the central return is a smaller single-storey gable-ended return.

The front southeast elevation is finished in painted render with various climbing plants. The ground floor has a plain, square-headed doorway at the centre with a window to each side. The door itself is a replacement painted timber-panelled door. All window frames throughout the house are replacement square-headed uPVC units with painted cut-stone sills, detailed to replicate six-over-six sash windows, each with a sidelight of three panes to either side. The upper-floor windows follow the same pattern with imitation six-over-six glazing.

The southwest gable elevation is gable-ended with a chimneystack at the apex. It has two irregularly placed replacement square-headed uPVC windows, one at each level: the upper opening is almost square, while the lower has more vertical emphasis. There is a plastic downpipe and soil stack on this gable. The side of the southwest hipped-roofed return is in line with this gable, and the sides of both the two-storey and single-storey gable-ended returns are also visible on this elevation.

The northeast gable elevation is similarly gable-ended with a chimneystack at the apex, and has square-headed replacement uPVC windows at each level. The northeast hipped-roofed return projects beyond this gable and has a square-headed opening facing southeast at the upper level and two windows facing northeast.

The rear elevation is dominated by the gable of the two-storey central return, with its tall chimney pots, and comprises a varied composition of the several returns described above.

External walls throughout are painted roughcast render with a recessed render base. The roof is finished in fibre cement slate, consistent across all parts of the building except the single-storey return, which has a corrugated asbestos roof. Chimneys are short cut-stone stacks with tall cut-sandstone hexagonal chimney pots and profiled cappings; the pots are paired on each gable of the main house, and there are three pots on the chimney of the central return. Rainwater goods are mostly plastic.

The two-storey pitched-roofed central return has two replacement square-headed uPVC windows to its southwest elevation, one at each storey; the upper window has no projecting sill. A small boilerhouse with a steel chimney is located on this elevation, along with a plastic downpipe to the inside corner. The southwest hipped-roofed return has one square-headed window at upper level on its southwest elevation and one on the lower level of its northwest elevation. The northeast hipped-roofed return has a square-headed opening facing southeast at the upper level, two further windows — one at each storey — facing northeast, and a square-headed door opening to the left side of its northwest elevation. The single-storey return is gable-ended with a pitched corrugated iron roof, a plastic downpipe to one corner, a cast-iron downpipe to the other, and a square-headed opening right of centre in the gable containing a four-over-four timber window with no sill.

Within the curtilage there is a single-storey detached outbuilding, rectangular in plan, with a square-headed door opening in its southwest gable end. It is constructed of painted rubble with a pitched slate roof. The southeast side elevation has three painted bricked-up openings; these sealed openings are semi-circular headed with brick voussoirs.

The approach to the house is via a tarmac driveway from the southeast, which widens in front of the house and continues around the northeast side towards the farmyard to the north. The boundary to the road to the east comprises a grassy ditch, a low stone wall that blends into the ditch, and a box-cut hedge on the inside. The gateposts are square piers with a chamfered plinth and pyramidal capping finished in painted render, the capping appearing to be painted concrete. Each of the two main gateposts is flanked by a smaller matching companion pier positioned in front and to the outside. The gates are painted cast-iron with vertical bars to the main body and ornamental scrolls to the top. A separate pedestrian gate near the outbuilding adjacent to the farmyard comprises two painted rendered square brick piers and a painted cast-iron gate with vertical bars that fold over at the top in a decorative triangular pattern; this gate is approached from the garden via a tarmac pathway and two concrete block steps. Directly across the road from the pedestrian gate is a large stone-walled circular sheepfold in coursed rubble, with its gate facing the pedestrian gate. Adjacent to the house to the north is a further stone-walled sheepfold, and the remains of a mill race lie to the south.

Behind the house, a timber fence separates the driveway from the garden. The garden is sparsely planted, with mature trees to the south and western boundaries and a mature monkey-puzzle tree in front of the house. Wide lawns surround the house. The weir to the south of the garden runs in a north-south direction; the river loops away from it and continues to flow northward. Above the weir, the millrace splits from the main flow and runs north parallel to the river towards a nearby engineering works, where it broadens into a large millpond. A pair of sluice gates controls the ingress of water to the millrace; it is unclear whether these operate independently to open individual gates or in tandem to operate a single large gate. The gates are rusted iron or possibly steel and are overgrown with ivy. The millrace forms the western boundary of the curtilage. To the north is the farmyard, with a collection of agricultural buildings.

The building, marked "Rocklodge", appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1833–34. The first valuation of 1834–c.1838 records it as a relatively old house in good condition (quality letter "1C+"), at that time in the hands of a Captain Daniel (or Daniell). The recorded dimensions of the main section were 38ft x 24ft x 14½ft, with returns of 22ft x 19ft x 14½ft and 15ft x 12ft x 7½ft, and outbuildings measuring 51ft x 20½ft x 7ft, 13½ft x 25ft x 7ft, and 9½ft x 17ft x 7ft, the largest of these thatched. The property was rated at the relatively modest valuation of £7-6-0, perhaps on account of its age. The valuation also recorded an old ruined mill to the north of the house, a relatively large structure measuring 47ft x 26ft x 20ft with an addition of 18ft x 19ft x 7ft. Captain Daniel remained at the property until at least 1837, when he is listed there in Lewis's Topographical Dictionary. By 1846, according to Slater's Directory, the house had passed to Frederick Lindesay Esquire, one of the Lindesays of Loughry, the major landowners in the area, and for the following fifty years the building served for much of that time as a residence for members of the family. The revised Ordnance Survey map of 1857 marks the dwelling as "Rock Lodge".

Judging from its present appearance, it seems likely that alterations were carried out to the building in the mid-19th century. A comparison between the dimensions recorded in 1835 and those in a valuer's office notebook of 1906 shows that the height of the main section had been raised by approximately 5 feet and that the returns had been extended by that date. The valuer's house notes from the second valuation of 1858 have not survived, so the precise dimensions at that point are unknown; however, as no changes to the building are recorded in post-1858 valuations, it can be assumed that any work was carried out before that date, probably around 1837–46 when the property changed hands.

In 1848, following the death of his nephew John, Frederick Lindesay inherited Loughry and vacated Rock Lodge. The building appears to have remained vacant for a period thereafter, but by 1863 at the latest a Frederick "Fritz" Lindesay — son of Frederick of Loughry — was in residence. Frederick Lindesay senior died in 1871 and Loughry passed to Fritz, a man with a taste for gambling and extravagant living who accrued liabilities said to have been in excess of £42,000. Following Fritz's death in 1877, Rock Lodge is recorded by the valuers as being in the hands of the Court of Bankruptcy. A few years later, however, it was occupied by Fritz's brother and successor, Joshua, who, in an attempt to resolve his deceased brother's debts, is said to have lived alone with only one servant, apparently forsaking Loughry and the expense it entailed for the more frugal confines of Rock Lodge. There appears to have been no money even for the upkeep of the smaller house, for in 1889 the valuation for the building decreased from £22 to £14-10-0, suggesting that it may have fallen into disrepair. Possibly because of this, and perhaps due to failing health, Joshua Lindesay appears to have moved back to Loughry in 1890, renting Rock Lodge first to a James Buchanan and then to a Margaret Burnett. Joshua Lindesay died in 1893, unable to recover the family debt and apparently a broken man. Shortly afterwards, the Loughry estate — including Rock Lodge — was sold to Cookstown businessman John Wilson Fleming, who in 1898 was renting the property to a Charles Gaussen. The house was subsequently acquired from Fleming by Thomas A. Ekin, another Cookstown businessman, who in 1901–02 leased it to a James McQueen. In 1906, Rock Lodge was acquired outright by Catherine McQueen, possibly James's daughter. Catherine made some improvements to the house and converted some old workers' houses to the north into outbuildings, with the rateable value rising from £9-10-0 to £12 as a result. In 1914, a Catherine Gilpin — possibly Catherine McQueen following marriage — is listed as owner and resident. The property was acquired by an Alexander Warnock around 1946, and at the time of recording remained with his descendants.