Springhill House, 20 Springhill Road, Moneymore, Magherafelt, Co Londonderry, BT45 7NQ

Springhill House

Springhill House is a fine example of a late 17th century country house, subsequently extended and remodelled in the 18th and early 19th centuries to great architectural effect. It is remarkable for the quality of its setting, its approach composition, and the interplay of forms, parts, and shadows on its south-east elevation, which looks towards the Beechwalk and the stump of a former windmill tower. The house has a fascinating history as the long-held seat of a Scottish plantation family, and entertained notable figures from Anglo-Irish history including the Beresfords and the Earl of Bristol, the so-called "edifying bishop".

Historical Background

The estate's origins lie with William Conyngham, a Scottish migrant who held land in Counties Armagh, Londonderry, and Tyrone and purchased 350 acres in the townland of Ballindrum in 1666. His son, Good-Will Conyngham, built the first house at Springhill — described at the time as "a convenient dwelling house of lime and stone, two stories high, with necessary office houses, gardens and orchards." Tree-ring dating of the attic roof timbers suggests a construction date of around 1697, and the detached wings forming the forecourt are believed to date from the same decade. The butt purlin roof construction used throughout was a form introduced into Ireland during the 17th century. This original house consisted of a core seven windows wide, one room deep, with a spiral staircase, and the two detached wings enclosing the forecourt.

Colonel William Conyngham inherited the property in 1765 and undertook significant renovations: he created the gun room, provided the decorative scheme in the hall, added the wings with the canted bays — the south-west bay forming a new dining room — and is presumed to have commissioned the grand staircase. In 1788, George Lenox inherited the estate and added "Lenox" to the family name, creating the Lenox-Conyngham family. His son, known as "Wims", added the present dining room in 1820, at which point the former dining room became the present drawing room. The fireplace in the new dining room is said to have been brought from Italy by the Earl Bishop Hervey, a friend of the family who visited and stayed at Springhill, although it may have originally been placed elsewhere in the house before reaching its present position, or acquired at a later date. In 1882 Sir William Fitzwilliam Conyngham was appointed agent to the Drapers' Company. In 1957, Captain W. L. Lennox-Conyngham gave the Springhill Estate to the National Trust.

The Ordnance Survey Memoirs, written when William Lenox-Conyngham was in residence, describe the house as "rather low and old fashioned in its appearance" and note, somewhat inaccurately, that it was said to have been built in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, though the Memoirs themselves acknowledge it bears no characteristics of that period's architecture. The Memoirs also record it as two storeys with wings extending forwards to form three sides of a courtyard, and place the date of construction at 1658 — a date not supported by the dendrochronological evidence.

Architectural Overview

The house presents as a symmetrical composition of two-and-a-half storeys over a basement, five bays wide, with a north-west aspect. The main building is composed of three elements: the house proper, flanked by two detached wings that together form a forecourt in front of the main entrance. As the house is approached along the direct avenue, the wings present a pair of "Dutch" gables that frame the principal façade. The wings on the south-west side are two storeys on their lower side and formerly served as the harness block.

Principal (North-West) Entrance Façade

The entrance front is symmetrical, with a central doorway approached across the basement area by a broad bridge reached by a flight of four steps, contained on each side by low curved walls. The entrance door has nine moulded panels within its frame and brass ironmongery. Around the square-headed door opening is a well-moulded sandstone architrave rising from blocking pieces. Flanking the door on each side is a single, narrow, eight-pane double-hung sliding sash window lighting the hall within.

Beyond these, to the left are two twelve-pane double-hung sliding sash windows with painted cills, and to the right are two fifteen-pane double-hung sliding sash windows lighting the library, with cills set lower than those on the opposite side. At first-floor level there are seven double-hung sliding sash windows: those above the hall windows are eight-pane; the remainder are twelve-pane. At basement level are four twelve-pane double-hung sliding sash windows fitted with protective iron bars. Beneath the entrance bridge there is a sheeted door and small window.

The roof is steeply pitched with natural slates. At the centre is a gabled dormer with a tripartite double-hung sliding sash window; a lead ridge runs along the apex, and there are sturdy red brick gable chimney stacks, the right-hand one being composite in form. To the left and right of the central block are single-storey canted bays, each facet glazed with a twelve-pane double-hung sliding sash window; their window heads sit slightly higher than those of the central block. The eaves line is level with the first-floor cills. The bay roofs are of natural slates, hipped and leaded, with the roof apex of each joined to the central block gable by pitched roofs.

The walls are harled and painted white, with no overhang but a continuous corbel beneath half-round metal gutters, which drain to a variety of trunkheads and round downpipes.

South-East (Rear) Elevation

The south-east elevation stands in complete contrast to the entrance front. Wholly asymmetrical, it has a marvellous Scottish flavour not unlike a Rennie Mackintosh house. It is dominated by the projecting central three-storey gabled main staircase block, whose round-headed seventeen-pane double-hung sliding sash landing window gazes up the beech walk towards the tower stump of the former windmill. Below this window is a panel door leading from the main staircase hall. Higher up in the gable, though centred, is a twelve-pane double-hung sliding sash window lighting the attic.

To the right of the main stair block, the quadrant curve of the servants' spiral staircase is punctuated with a variety of double-hung sliding sash windows. Further right is the rear wall of the main block, which carries two twelve-pane double-hung sliding sash windows placed directly one above the other but of differing heights. This section gives the impression of a deep recess, though in reality the back roof slope has a considerable overhang and appears to span from the spiral stair wall across to the wing. This wing changes height from single storey on the entrance front — though originally it was one-and-a-half storeys with a dormer window, as an early illustration confirms — to two storeys at the rear, with a clever adjustment to the roof to accommodate this change. It terminates at the rear in a large semi-circular bay with two twelve-pane double-hung sliding sash windows at each floor, though of differing heights. The corresponding windows at basement level are similar but have segmental heads.

To the left of the main staircase block is a similar projection, but one storey less in height, gabled, with two twelve-pane double-hung sliding sash windows at ground level and a single twelve-pane double-hung sliding sash window centrally placed at first-floor level. To the far left is a single-storey gabled projection housing the 18th century dining room, with two twelve-pane double-hung sliding sash windows and a red brick chimney stack.

The rear wall is mainly rubble stone, whitewashed or painted white, giving a pleasing texture. The north-east wall of the main stair block has slate hanging in varying hues.

South-West Flank

The south-west side, comprising the walls of the dining room and sitting room, has three twelve-pane double-hung sliding sash windows lighting the sitting room, with three square blank recesses below them. Towards the entrance front, a screen wall projects and continues to join the south-east detached long wing, with a flight of steps leading through to a door giving access to the basement area at the front.

North-East Flank

The north-east side has an otherwise blank wall with the exception of a single twelve-pane double-hung sliding sash window lighting a bedroom in the warden's accommodation. Changes of level occur in the basement area here. On the other side of this basement area are the former slaughter and laundry areas.

Forecourt Wings

The two wings flanking the forecourt are similar to one another in elevation. Each has three nine-pane pointed windows with criss-cross astragals, a chimney stack, Dutch-type bargeboards with a flat apex designed to receive an urn, and a quasi-kneeler with a shelf also for an urn. The roofs of the rear elevation are of natural slates, with gradated slating over the circular bay.

Setting and Grounds

Springhill House is set within a small estate of woodland and open fields. The estate originally extended to the south-east side of Springhill Road and is believed to stand on the edge of the former Glenconkyne Forest, which dates to the late medieval period and early Plantation times. Ranges of outbuildings extend in parallel lines to the south-west and north-east, and close to the farmyard is a large walled kitchen garden.

To the south-east, the beech walk — lined on each side with trees — forms a deliberate vista from the staircase window, terminating in the ruin of a former windmill. The beech walk was greatly reduced around 1962 and subsequently replanted roughly from the line of the stone-faced ha-ha. There are two avenue approaches from Springhill Road, each with a gate lodge. The estate wall continues from the first gate lodge to a little beyond the pigeon house. The grounds contain a number of splendid trees, including a yew and a cedar of Lebanon. Wall garden areas are abundant owing to the geometric layout of the outbuildings. In one of the enclosures adjacent to the great barn grows a rose known as the McCartney rose, brought from China by its namesake. The listing covers the house, detached wings, basement area wall, and the ha-ha.