Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB03/07/011 A

Address :
Cromore House 58 Cromore Road Coleraine Co. Londonderry BT55 7PW

Townland:
Ballyleese North

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Survey 2:
B+

Date of Listing:
25/05/1976 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
Residential Home

Former Use
House

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
12-4

IG Ref:
C8311 3730

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Owner Category

Exterior Description And Setting

A symmetrical four-bay two-storey-over-basement detached mid-eighteenth century country house with attic, now residential home; remodelled in 1834 with additions including two Doric-style single-storey pavilions; located to the west side of Cromore Road southeast of Portstewart town centre. Rectangular plan comprising central Georgian section flanked by end bays and single-storey pavilions (1834); pavilion to southwest is detached. Original two-storey rubblestone L-shaped former stable-block to northeast. Hipped natural slate roof with leaded ridges and hips; ashlar chimneystacks and sandstone parapet. Cast-iron ogee rainwater goods on projecting modillioned eaves. Walling is pink sandstone with raised quoins and plinth; plain frieze under eaves. Georgian section has 6/6 timber sash windows surmounted by keyblocks with projecting sandstone sills. Victorian end bays have large multi-paned timber windows with margin panes to each floor, surmounted by corniced canopy with console brackets; three 3/3 dormer windows to southeast, northwest and southwest elevations. Southeast facing and symmetrically arranged, the original section is simply detailed with four evenly-spaced windows at each floor (diminished in height); flanking end bays each have Victorian glazing set in two-storey breakfront. The southwest elevation has three windows at each floor; first floor windows have moulded architraves; tall multi-paned openings to ground floor having double-leaf French doors surmounted by drip moulds. 10/10 window and modern door to raised basement under verandah supported on concrete piers; verandah has sandstone balustrade and piers with lion heads carved in high relief. The northwest (rear) elevation is symmetrically arranged with central projecting section four openings wide at each floor including two modern entrance doors to raised basement. End bays each two openings wide with modern timber doors to basement. The northeast elevation has a timber tripartite window to first floor flanked by 6/6 windows; it is abutted at ground floor left by a single storey Doric pavilion and at right by the two-storey rubblestone former stable block which has a modern glazed timber entrance insertion detailed to reflect the Doric elements in each of the pavilions. uPVC entrance doors to open to southeast. The pavilion is fronted at right by a prostyle tetrastyle portico raised on stone platform accessed by bull-nosed steps. All detailing is commensurate with the Doric order; soffit is panelled and the platform is enclosed to either side by a stone balustrade. Central panelled timber door with panelled stone reveals and moulded architrave flanked by alcoved niches, all divided by pilaster responds; right cheek has a margin paned window inset with top-hung casement having a deep moulded sill over scrolled brackets and panelled apron; left cheek has a 6/6 sash to left and a blind opening to right, detailed as previous. Rear elevation of pavilion is completely abutted by the former stable block. Detached pavilion to southwest detailed as that to northeast; glazed as a conservatory with original timber casement windows and wainscoting to aprons panels; to southeast elevation is a timber-sheeted and glazed double-leaf timber door accessed by three sandstone stone steps. Setting: Situated on an extensive mature site to the southeast of Portstewart. The lodge (HB03/10/011B) and gate screen were later additions (c.1857). Tarmacadamed car-parking to northeast, and the insertion of some external handrails. Variety of plantings and mature trees on the site, dating from the eighteenth-century and a mid-nineteenth century infill. To rear of the house is a lawned garden, divided from the house by a narrow path and a row of modern metal railings. Garden to rear is enclosed by mature plantings. Raised slab terrace to front with sandstone plinth wall topped by spearhead cast-iron railings and with a set of sandstone steps to end bays (1834). Bull-nosed stone steps to end bays and pavilions with modern metal handrails; divided by parapet walls with coping and cast-iron lamp to lower pier. Sandstone balustrade to front and southwest with piers having carved lion-heads in high relief. Former walled garden to east of house no longer in use, but rubble-stone and red-brick wall remains almost entirely intact. To northeast former service buildings have been refurbished and converted for use as holiday accommodation; comprising L-shaped range of two-storey rubble-stone buildings with red-brick chimneystacks and dressings, arranged around a central yard with modern landscaping, enclosed by rubble-stone wall and accessed via a modern round-headed red-brick arch with pediment topped by sandstone coping. Four ashlar sandstone gate piers to entrance at Cromore Road with outer piers divided by original spearhead cast-iron railings and gates to centre, supported on responds with decorative scrolled brackets. Rock-faced stone entrance boundary wall to road. Central piers are taller and have decorative raised and pointed panels to shaft and pointed caps. Roof: Natural slate Walling: Sandstone Windows: 6/6 timber sash and multi-paned timber casements RWG: Cast-iron

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

Cromore House, a two-storey gentleman’s residence in the townland of Ballyleese North, dates from the mid-18th century; the earliest section of the house comprises the central four bays although the extensions were not added until the mid-19th century. The building was depicted on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map in 1830 at which time the extension work had not commenced; the map depicts the dwelling as an oblong structure flanked by two smaller outbuildings to its northeast and southwest sides (now demolished). Lewis, writing in 1837, states that in the parish of Agherton ‘there are several gentleman’s seats, the principal of which [is] Cromore, an elegant mansion, the residence of J. Cromie Esq., the principal proprietor in the parish (Lewis). The contemporary Townland Valuations (c. 1830) valued Cromie’s estate at £32 14s. The contemporary Ordnance Survey Memoirs repeated that in the 1830s Cromore House was the property of John Cromie; however, the dwelling was then occupied by a Mr. G. A. Wray Esq. who did not vacate the site until c. 1834 when he moved to Inishowen in Co. Donegal. In 1834 Cromie reoccupied his grand house and in that year undertook improvement work ‘by building additions to it and ornamenting [it] with cut sandstone’ (Ordnance Survey Memoirs, p. 7; p. 20). The improvement work included the two-storey wings which were installed to either side of the original mansion and the single-storey entrance porches that flank each extension, but may also have included the two-storey L-shaped stable-block located to the northeast of the house which was certainly constructed between 1830 and c. 1860 when it first appeared on the second edition Ordnance Survey map. Further, the outbuildings to the far north-east of the house (currently restored and utilised as holiday cottages) were erected in the same period, presumably as part of the same improvement work general throughout Cromie’s estate. The Ordnance Survey map of c. 1860 depicted all of these additions and also noted that the current outbuilding complex to the north-east of the dwelling had been erected since the 1830 map. Griffith’s Valuation (1857) notes that John Cromie continued to reside at Cromore House which, as a result of its many additions, had increased in value to £85. The Ordnance Survey map and Griffith’s Valuation also record that a schoolhouse had been constructed on Cromie’s land since the 1830s; this was valued at £2 and was demolished between 1888 and 1894. John Cromie continued to reside at Cromore House until his death in 1875 at which time administration of the Cromie estate, including all his lands in the Portstewart and Portrush region, passed to his representatives. It was during this transitional period in Cromore House’s history that the estate’s gate lodge (HB03/07/011B) was constructed, raising the total value of the dwelling and its out offices to £87. Cromore House was reoccupied in 1886 when a Mr. Robert Acheson Montague took possession of the site, residing there until 1931. The 1901 and 1911 Census records that Robert Montague (1854 – 1931) was a Roman Catholic former Lieutenant in the Royal Navy, who retired from service to settle at Portstewart where he took up the Cromore estate and was later appointed a Justice of the Peace. Montague was not resident at Cromore during the 1901 Census, however the Census Building Return described his property as a 1st class dwelling that consisted of 30 inhabited rooms and possessed a large number of out offices including four stables (located in the L-shaped stable block to the northeast of the house), four cow houses, a dairy, four piggeries and a barn which were located in the estates many outbuildings. Robert Montague purchased Cromore House outright in 1907. In 1911 the Census recorded that he resided at the estate with his wife and daughter, employing a number of servants to manage the mansion. Robert Montague continued to reside at Cromore House until his death in 1931 (PRONI Wills Catalogue – 12 Oct 1931). The Cromie family are first recorded in the mid-17th century, based in Tullaghgore, Co. Antrim, however by the mid-18th century John Cromie had constructed the central four-bays of Cromore House at Ballyleese where his maternal ancestors originated; these ancestors, the Stewarts of Ballyleese, provided the name for Portstewart which was founded in 1792 by John Cromie. Girvan describes Cromore House as a two-storey dwelling ‘faced with sandstone ... with basement and attic dormers in the hipped roof.’ The additions, installed in 1834, included the north-east entrance porch which was styled after a Tetrastyle Doric temple; the detatched symmetrical south-west porch was not intended as an entrance but was glazed as a conservatory and originally included a greenhouse. Bence-Jones states that Cromore’s splendid hall, containing an Ionic screen and staircase, was constructed in 1834 as part of John Cromie’s improvement work (Girvan, p. 37; Bence-Jones, p. 95). Bence-Jones states that after the death of John Cromie, Cromore House passed to the Montague family through the marriage of Ellen Cromie to Lord Robert Montague (1825-1902), a Roman Catholic conservative M.P who reverted to Protestantism as a protest against Gladstone’s Irish policies.; Ellen Cromie died in 1857 at the age of 32, however their son Robert Acheson Montague took over the Cromore estate in 1886. Cromore House was listed Category A in 1976; the estate remained in the Montague family until the mid-twentieth century when it was sold, although the former gentlemen’s dwelling subsequently fell vacant and into a state of disrepair. In recent years Cromore House has been utilised as a residence for post-graduate students at the University of Ulster, however it is no longer utilised by the University and has since been renovated and currently operates as an Elderly Care Home (Bence Jones, p. 95). The outbuildings located to the far north-east of Cromore House, formerly utilised as farmbuildings, have been renovated and converted into a holiday cottage complex known as Cromore Village References Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/5/3/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1830 2. PRONI OS/6/5/3/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map c. 1860 3. PRONI OS/6/5/3/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1904 4. PRONI OS/6/5/3/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1922-32 5. PRONI VAL/1/A/5/3 – Townland Valuation Map c. 1830 6. PRONI VAL/1/B/ 539A-B – Townland Valuation c. 1830 7. PRONI VAL/2/B/5/10 – Griffith’s Valuation 1857 8. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/17A – Annual Revisions 1859-1863 9. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/17B – Annual Revisions 1874-1876 10. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/17C – Annual Revisions 1877-1887 11. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/17D – Annual Revisions 1888-1894 12. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/17E – Annual Revisions 1895-1905 13. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/17F – Annual Revisions 1906-1917 14. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/17G – Annual Revisions 1918-1929 15. PRONI Wills Catalogue (17 Jan 1875; 12 Oct 1931) 16. Lewis’ Topographical Dictionary (1837) 17. Ordnance Survey Memoirs, Co. Londonderry, Vol. 33 No. XII (1835) 18. Census of Ireland (1901 / 1911) 19. Ordnance Survey Map – 12-4 (1966) 20. First Survey Record – HB03/07/011 (1973) 21. First Survey Image – HB03/07/011 (1973) Secondary Sources 1. Bence-Jones, M., ‘A guide to Irish country houses’ London: Constable, 1989. 2. Dean, J. A. K., ‘The gate lodges of Ulster: A gazetteer’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1994. 3. Girvan, W. D., ‘Historic Buildings in Coleraine and Portstewart’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1972. Online Resources 1. Dictionary of Irish Architects - http://www.dia.ie 2. Cromore Village Website - http://www.cromorevillage.com/location.php

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation D. Plan Form H-. Alterations detracting from building J. Setting K. Group value

Historic Interest

W. Northern Ireland/International Interest R. Age S. Authenticity T. Historic Importance

Evaluation

Cromore House is an impressive four-bay two-storey-over-basement detached mid-eighteenth century large country house with attic (now residential home), situated to the west side of Cromore Road southeast of Portstewart town centre. Remodelled in 1834, much of the remaining fabric dates from this time. Characterised by a combination of design elements and a symmetrical form with distinctive flanking single-storey pavilions, the house is much enhanced by a relatively intact setting with walled garden and Victorian gate-screen to east. There is also group value with the gate lodge (HB03/07/011B). Despite some alterations and loss of historic detailing through change of use, Cromore House retains much of its original character and is an important example of its type in the district.

General Comments

Thie record has been renumbered as part of the Cromore House group - previously known as HB03/07/011. Listing Criteria R - Age; S - Authenticity and T - Historic Importance also apply.

Date of Survey

03 August 2012