Servite Priory, 10 Main Street, Benburb, Dungannon, Co Tyrone, BT71 7JZ

Servite Priory, 10 Main Street, Benburb

This is a large former country house built between 1888 and 1890 to designs by the architect William Henry Lynn, commissioned by James Bruce, a Belfast businessman who had recently purchased the Benburb estate from the Powerscourt (Wingfield) family. To make way for the new house, Bruce demolished a number of dwellings on the south side of the village's Main Street, including Benburb House, a large residence previously occupied by a Mr Brush, agent to the Powerscourts. The building was constructed by the Belfast firm of James Henry and Sons. It is broadly similar in style to other Lynn compositions of this period, such as Riddel Hall and Campbell College.

The house is built in an austere, institutional Elizabethan style, three storeys in height over most of its extent and dropping to two storeys in places, with a complex roofline of many steeply pitched gables, dormers and tall chimney stacks. The exterior is finished throughout in red brick with decorative bands of red Dumfriesshire sandstone at window header levels and at other horizontal intervals, projecting eaves courses and string courses. The building sits on a bevelled base. The gables carry fireclay parapets, now largely discoloured, with squat finials. The tall chimney stacks are also in brick with bevelled bases, sandstone bands, cornice courses and rendered copings. The roof is slated with fireclay ridge tiles. Rainwater goods are cast iron. All window frames have been replaced with uPVC.

The plan form consists of two principal blocks. The main residential block occupies the eastern portion and is three storeys throughout. To its west a short three-storey section links to a somewhat smaller service block. The overall composition is approached from the east, past a gate lodge of the same date and by the same architect (recorded separately), along a drive that leads southward from Main Street.

The front, north-facing elevation of the main house is deliberately asymmetric and has a complex, layered appearance. The left-hand portion rises to two and a half to three storeys, containing the residential section, while to the right it reduces to one and a half to two storeys. The three-storey section is arranged in three bays. The main entrance occupies the left side of the ground floor of the central bay and takes the form of a large, flat-roofed open portico constructed in Dumfriesshire sandstone. It is open to both the north and west but enclosed to the east by a projecting bay. Relatively plain square columns support the portico roof, which has a plain frieze and cornice and is topped with a balustrade with cube-like end piers. At ground level the open west side of the portico is also spanned by a matching balustrade. A shallow wheelchair ramp with plain metal handrail has been added to the north side. Within the portico the main entrance doorway consists of a panelled and glazed double timber door with ornate leadwork to the glazing and a plain rectangular fanlight above. The floor of the portico contains a terrazzo-like mosaic incorporating the monogram of James Bruce at its centre.

To the immediate left of the portico is a large projecting bay. Its right-hand side is taller and culminates in a gable containing the stairwell. To the left on the ground floor is a group of three tall windows, with two similar windows directly above at first-floor level. To the right side of the bay there are two groups of similar windows set at intermediate stair-landing levels, the upper windows set half-dormer-like into the gable. There is a small square sandstone panel to the gable. To the right of this gable there is a relatively small hipped-roof dormer. Directly above the portico a doorway opens onto the portico roof, fitted with a uPVC door; above this is a further hipped-roof dormer. To the immediate right of the portico are two ground-floor windows, with a similar window above at first-floor level and another at second-floor level set within a large gable similar to that on the bay to the left. To the short west-facing portion of this bay there are two windows at ground floor and two at first floor, together with a small flat-roofed dormer.

To the right of this bay is a part three-storey, part two-storey, part one-and-a-half-storey recessed bay acting as a link between the residential section and the service block. At ground floor there are three windows. At first floor the bay narrows, with two small windows to the left and a hipped-roof dormer to the right, this end being one and a half storeys. At second-floor level there are two windows set within hipped-roof half-dormers. Rising behind the roof of the one-and-a-half-storey portion is an intermediate section of façade, topped with a small gable to its right containing a small window, with what appears, from internal evidence, to be a further small second-floor window in a west-facing portion of façade to its left.

The right-hand end of the north elevation comprises the north façade of the service block. This has three windows of various sizes at ground floor, a single window at semi-basement level and another at stair-landing level. To the left a large gable carries a small first-floor window, with a tall chimney stack rising from it. To the right of the gable is a further hipped-roof dormer. At the right-hand end this façade merges with a large brick gate screen featuring a segmental-headed archway spanning to the former stable yard quadrangle to the west. To the south of the screen is a small yard, bordered on the south by the 1950s extension and to the west by part of the stable yard building.

The east-facing façade of the service block has three ground-floor windows and two hipped-roof dormers. The west-facing façade has three ground-floor windows; at first-floor level a large gable to the left contains two windows, with a hipped-roof dormer to its right. There are basement light wells to this side.

The long south elevation of the main house is considerably more uniform than the front, being largely unbroken with only a few shallow projecting bays. Reading from left to right: the long, flat-roofed 1950s extension occupies the far left; to its immediate right is the south façade of the service block; and the long south façade of the residential section extends to the right. The 1950s extension is finished in a typical brown-red rough-faced brick of that era and is divided into two sections, the longer left portion being slightly taller. This section is almost entirely glazed, with doorways at far left and far right and a series of small square windows to the first floor. The shorter right portion of the extension has similar windows at first floor and slightly larger versions at ground floor.

The south façade of the service block is two and a half to three storeys and is arranged in two bays. To the left a projecting gabled bay contains two windows at ground floor, two slightly smaller windows at first floor and a single similar window at second floor within the gable; there are also two semi-basement windows to this bay. The broader bay to the right contains three ground-floor windows, two first-floor windows, two hipped-roof dormers, three stairwell windows set at intermediate levels to the left of centre, and a semi-basement window to the left.

The long south façade of the residential section is also two and a half to three storeys but is significantly taller than the service section. To the left it has a three-storey canted bay with a steep hipped roof and a relatively large window to each face at each floor level. To the right of this, at ground floor, are five tall windows with a tall doorway fitted with a uPVC double door situated between the fourth and fifth windows, approached by a short but broad flight of steps. At the far right of the ground floor is a single-storey flat-roofed canted bay with a window to each face and a tall parapet. At first floor, to the left of the full-height canted bay, are six windows. At the uppermost floor, to the right of the full-height canted bay, the composition comprises a gable with two small windows, followed by three flat-roofed dormers, followed by a further matching gable.

The short east elevation has a single-storey canted bay to the left at ground floor (matching that on the south elevation), with a pair of windows to its right. At first floor there are three similar windows. At the uppermost level a large gable to the right contains two smallish windows, with two hipped-roof dormers to its left.

The north façade of the 1950s extension is entirely blank at ground-floor level apart from a centrally placed doorway, with a line of modern windows at first-floor level. At first-floor level to the far right there is a linking corridor to the south wing of the stable yard block. The short north face of this extension has a small round window to the right at ground floor and three roughly square windows at first floor together with a glazed door giving access to a fire escape stair.

The complex also includes several other buildings. To the west of the priory and stable yard is a large garden set on a slight slope. Along the north side of this garden runs a long lean-to greenhouse with a projecting gabled section roughly at the centre and another double-gabled projecting section to the right (east). Much of the left-hand section of the greenhouse, to the west of the central projection, has been demolished and only elements of the framing remain standing. On the opposite, north side of the wall against which the greenhouse leans is a long single-storey lean-to former kennel with a painted roughcast façade, timber-sheeted doors and a series of small windows with timber casement frames, many of which now have bars fitted over them.

At the head of the main drive to the east of the priory stands a relatively large one-and-a-half-storey gate lodge of the same date as the house and also designed by Lynn (recorded separately). It is in a broadly similar style to the house — red brick façade, steeply pitched gabled roof and an entrance portico — but is considerably more picturesque, with a roof overhang, decorative bargeboards and ridge tiles, finials, a gabled roof to the portico and decorative mouldings. Unlike the main house it has retained its sash windows. Extending from the portico of the lodge is a gate screen with relatively low red brick and sandstone walls and tall square sandstone gate piers with semicircular-headed recesses to their outer faces. The wrought-iron gates are relatively simple in design and carry the emblem of the priory together with stylised fish motifs. The portico of the lodge itself serves as a pedestrian gate. There is a further shorter pier to the south.

Running northward from the front façade of the main house is a second gate screen similar in style to the one described above but with much lower walls and smaller piers. This screen acts as a kind of marker between the residential section of the complex and the service areas, and is passed through when approaching the entrance to the stable yard; it has no gates. To the immediate east of the main house is a small formal garden with a pond and fountain.

The stable yard quadrangle with its mock half-timbered barbican entrance wing and small clock tower is recorded separately.

Turning to the history of the building: James Bruce died childless in 1917 and the manor house and remaining lands, amounting to 307 acres in total, were sold to a consortium comprising Robert Pollock and James Cooper of Enniskillen and James Smith of Liverpool. Cooper subsequently sold his share to Pollock, and Smith sold his to William Todd, who was in partnership with Robert Boyd. Todd and Boyd then bought out Pollock's share and planned to convert the house into a hotel. By 1935, however, Todd was declared bankrupt and much of the outlying land was sold off. The building appears to have stood vacant until the beginning of the Second World War, when it was requisitioned by the War Office for use as a military hospital. After the war Boyd put the estate up for sale and in 1946 it was acquired by the Roman Catholic Parish of Clonfeacle for £12,000. Local clergy originally intended to use the building as an orphanage or collegiate establishment, but in 1949 they sold it for £26,000 to an American branch of the Servites, a Catholic religious order that had been seeking to establish a priory in Ireland for some years. The Servites retain ownership to this day. In the 1950s the large hall extension was added to the west end of the house on the site of the original large conservatory and greenhouse, and the south wing of the stable yard was rebuilt at the same time.

Whilst the building is of some architectural and historical interest, the various alterations and additions — most notably the replacement of all windows with uPVC frames and the construction of the large modern flat-roofed 1950s extension — significantly detract from its character as a late Victorian country house.