Ivybrook Lodge, 20 Drumalane Road, Newry, Co Down, BT35 8AP

Ivybrook Lodge is a two-part residential complex, now used as offices, consisting of an original early 19th-century house and a larger, later ashlar granite extension that together form an architecturally interesting combination of informal and formal styles. The building has notable historical associations with the Reverend John Mitchel and the industrialist William Hill Irvine, giving it significance at both national and local level. The original plan forms survive largely intact, with only minor modern alterations, and many original features remain. The building was formerly known as Drumalane House.

The Complex as a Whole

The two buildings sit side by side: the older, original Ivybrook Lodge faces west onto Drumalane Road, while the larger, later extension abuts its rear (east-facing) wall and has effectively reversed the orientation of the whole complex, presenting its principal rooms and main façade eastward onto a landscaped garden.

The Original House

The original house is a rectangular two-storey block with basement and attic, two bays wide. A projecting gabled porch addition faces the road on its right-hand bay, and a lower single-bay, two-storey unit is attached to its south gable. The roof is pitched and slated with tiled verges. One cement-rendered chimney with a projecting cap rises from the west pitch, aligned with the ridge. Half-round metal rainwater goods serve this part of the building. All walls are cement rendered unless noted otherwise.

The west façade, which faces the road, has stepped rendered quoins. The porch rises almost to first-floor level on the right bay. Above it, serving the half-landing between the first floor and attic, is a 6/3 sliding sash window. The left bay has 6/6 exposed box sliding sash windows at ground and first floor, both with granite cills. The porch has a pitched natural slate roof, hipped at its junction with the main house so as not to obstruct the landing window above. Half-round plastic rainwater goods serve the porch. Its gable has a decorative timber bargeboard featuring a radial motif and stylised shamrocks. At the lower level of the porch gable there is a door leading to a half-landing between the basement and ground floor of the main block; this door has six moulded panels with raised fields, though its sidelights are now blocked. Above it, approached by external steel stairs from street level, is a second door in a segmental-headed opening, which leads to the half-landing between the ground floor and first floor of the main block; this door is modern stained timber with sidelights. There are narrow 1/1 sliding sash windows on each cheek of the porch at both levels.

The north gable of the original house is two bays wide. The left verge, as seen from the north, appears to have been raised at some point. A downpipe at the left carries water from the valley between the old and new blocks. The right bay has window openings at basement, ground and first floor levels, but only the ground-floor window is original — a 4/4 sliding sash — while the other two have been replaced with modern top-hung casements. The left bay is lit by larger windows: at ground and first floor these are tripartite, comprising a 6/6 sliding sash with a three-paned transom in the centre, flanked by a 2/2 sash with a single-pane transom to each side. The basement window in this bay is also tripartite, consisting of a 6/3 sash flanked by timber-louvred openings. At attic level, to the right of centre, is a paired 1/1 sash.

The east wall of the original block is wholly abutted by the later extension. The south gable is abutted on the left by a two-storey return with basement. The gable and most of the return are entirely slate-hung in natural slates, except for the basement on the right, which is rendered. A pair of metal-sheeted double doors gives access to the basement, reached by ten external granite steps with a metal handrail. The gable is otherwise plain apart from an exposed box 6/6 sliding sash window at attic level. The return has a pitched natural slate roof. Its walls are lime rendered, except for the right cheek, which has exposed random rubble granite to basement and ground floor. The return's gable has a 2/2 sliding sash at first floor. Its left cheek, which faces the road in line with the main block, has a 6/6 sliding sash at ground floor. On the right cheek, a passage runs along at basement level, where there is a modern tongue-and-groove door; at ground floor on this cheek there is a 1/1 sash window.

The Later Extension

The later extension is a large, symmetrical two-storey block with basement and attic, three bays wide, abutting the rear of the original house. It has a hipped natural slate roof. Two ashlar granite chimneys rise from the eaves on its west elevation, separate from the older building. The walls are of smooth-faced ashlar granite above a projecting chamfered basement course, with raised V-jointed stepped quoins. The basement walls have roughly dressed stone faces. Granite dentils support an ogee-moulded cornice that incorporates the rainwater gutters.

The main (east-facing) façade looks onto the former garden and contains the principal entrance to the whole building. Four granite steps, with a wheelchair ramp and railing to the left, rise to the main door, which is of painted timber with four fielded panels, a beaded muntin, and a modern letterbox. The doorcase is flanked by a pair of square ashlar pilasters supporting a dressed lintel, which also runs across two-paned cilled lights to either side of the door; above this is a margin-paned overlight. The jambs of the encasement are raised ashlar, topped by scrolled consoles and an entablature with a shallow-gabled blocking course, above which a modern electric light is fitted. To either side of the door there is a one-storey canted window bay with an overhanging flat roof, moulded cill and cornice. Each face of these bays is glazed with margin-paned windows with transoms, and there are two sets in the middle face of each bay. At first floor, five equally spaced 6/6 sliding sash windows — one over the central door and two above each bay — have single-piece granite lintels and cills. These windows have no horns.

The south elevation of the extension has two 6/6 sliding sash windows at ground floor, each with a projecting cut-stone drip mould. The first-floor windows are identical in pattern but diminished in height and without drip moulds. An external passage runs along the basement on this side, lit by two 8/4 sash windows, each protected by a metal security grille.

The west elevation of the extension is partly abutted by the earlier building, leaving a section of wall exposed at the south end. This exposed section contains a 6/6 sash window in a semicircular-headed opening at first floor, with spoked glazing bars. At basement level on this elevation there is a tongue-and-groove door to the right, with two windows to its left: one is a modern top-hung casement and the other a 6/3 sash, both with security grilles. The door and one of the windows share a three-piece keystoned granite lintel. The exposed section of wall to the north on this elevation is blank.

The north elevation is broadly similar to the west and also has a basement passage. A downpipe descends from a hopper between ground and first floor at the right-hand end. The left-hand first-floor window, as seen from the north, has been replaced with a modern timber fire-escape door and sidelight, with a modern electric light above; an external flight of metal stairs descends from left to right from this door. To accommodate the stairs, the drip mould over the ground-floor window to the right has been removed. The two basement windows on this elevation have been replaced with modern timber casements. All windows on this elevation retain granite cills and are protected by security grilles.

Immediately to the south of the original house is a two-storey range of cement-rendered outbuildings, now of little architectural merit.

Historical Background

MacCabe's 1830 Newry Directory records the Reverend John Mitchel as the occupant of Ivy Brook, Dromolane. He had been appointed Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland in 1822 and transferred to Newry in 1823. His son, also named John (1815–1875), became a nationally prominent Irish republican, commemorated by a statue nearby. Whether the house was built for the Reverend Mitchel or was already in existence when he arrived has not yet been established. He is confirmed as occupier in the 1836 First Valuation book, which describes the building as measuring 30 feet 6 inches by 30 feet by 22 feet high, with a 6-foot-high cellar — dimensions that correspond to the original house described above. The gable return was originally connected to the outbuildings to the south but was subsequently detached.

The 1863 Valuation records the owner as Hill Irvine, who was also responsible for the nearby Drumalane Spinning Mill, which opened in 1867. Belfast and Provincial directories show Hill had occupied the house from at least 1852. By this point the valuers record two distinct structures within the complex: one measuring 60 feet by 27 feet over two storeys and a basement, and another measuring 30 feet by 24 feet over two and a half storeys. The latter corresponds to the original house recorded in the 1836 Valuation, while the former is the later extension. The 1861 Ordnance Survey map confirms the extension was already in place by then and names the property Drumalane House, suggesting the enlargement and renaming took place between 1836 and 1861, most likely when Hill acquired the property. The 1861 map also shows the single-bay building on the south gable of the original house connected to the range of outbuildings; it is possible this unit was originally an outbuilding that was later incorporated into the dwelling, with its physical link to the remaining outbuildings subsequently removed.

The Drumalane Spinning Company acquired both the house and mill in 1876. The house was let to various tenants before passing to the Blackstaff Spinning and Weaving Company in 1919 when they acquired the mill. The building is now used as an administrative base for the Newry and Mourne Health Trust, who have reverted to the building's original name of Ivybrook Lodge — though strictly speaking this name applies only to the original earlier house.