A blog of sketches of historic buildings - Marks of Time

547

31/1/2018

Roe Park House, now a hotel known as the Roe Park Resort, looks accross rolling lawns to the River Roe and Limavady and mountains beyond. Though entered to the side through a modern foyer, the original entrance remans in a projecting curved bay. The house was commenced around 1704 by a Captain Babington who called the building and estate Mullagh. It would have been two windows wide on each side of the entrance. Marcus McCausland aquired the estate around c1730 and changed name to Daisyhill. His son buit a dining room, out-houses and offices c.1782. Sir Francis McNaghten changed the name to Roe Park and further extended the front of the building in 1826 adding a drawing room. This brought the house building to its current very unusual length of 14 window bays, or 140 feet, long. The hotel development around the building is very large, but the historic building and much of its setting remain the dominant features.

546.

29/1/2018

Roe Park Gate Lodge is half a mile further along at the entrance to Roe Park House (now the Roe Park Resort). Made of cut sandstone with an overhanging slate roof, it is a simple but elegant building. It was built around 1826 when Sir Francis McNaghten owned the estate.

545

23/1/2018

Rough Fort sits adjacent to the original line of Clooney Road as it approaches Limavady. It is a well preserved circular earthwork known as a rath with an outer ditch and central flat area. When in use this would have contained dwellings and cattle with the ditch probably surmounted by a timber palisade fence. Such structures are very common accross Ireland and can date from earliest times. Often such features were planted with trees in the early nineteenth century to increase their prominence as a feature in the landscape. This was the case at here and at the crest of a small hill it is a very visible feature. The rath is in the ownership of the National Trust. It was its first aquisition in Northern Ireland donated in 1937 by local landlord, Marcus McCausland, also Chairman of the Northern Ireland Committee of the Trust at that time.

544.

22/1/2018

On the upper sider of Clooney Road, best reached via the Tully Road from Ballykelly is Tamlaght Finlagan Old Church. This sits on a small rise beside the Bessbrook River and is the location of the ancient church of the Ballykelly area. Here was a monastery reputedly founded by St Findluganus following the convention of Drumcatt in 574 AD. It is recorded as having had a round tower, ruinous in the mid nineteenth century. A rectangular projection to the church at the north east end has curved masonry inside and may be the base of this structure. The monastry had become a parish church by 1291 and was abandonded in 1622. This was because the Fishmongers Company moved the parish church to their settlement of Ballykelly (see 535) following the Ulster Plantation. The drawing shows the extensive and atmosperic graveyard, with many graves marked by simple stones and the west gable of the building. A timeless place well worth the visit.

January 17th, 2018

17/1/2018

About two miles outside Ballykelly is Farlow Road. This runs from Clooney Roard towards Lough Foyle and passes this interesting tower. Largely obscured by trees, this is the Sampson Memorial Tower. It was constructed in 1860 and a plaque over the door explains that ;Arthur Sampson Esq.was for nearly forty years a Justice of the Peace and agent of the Fishmongers’ Company and that the tower was erected by public subscription. It is an odd memorial and may have been built more with the intention of appearing as a landmark from the Lough. There are reputely fine views back towards tle Lough from the top of its 18m high tower. Worth a visit.

January 16th, 2018

16/1/2018

Ballykelly is also home to the third WWII airfied we have encountered since leaving Derry. This was opened in 1941 as RAF Ballykelly and after the war became part of the Joint Anti Submarine School ( with HMS Sea Eagle based at Ebrington Barracks) and was the base for three squadrons of Shackleton Aircraft in the 1950′s. The school was closed at the end of the ‘60′s and transfered to the Army (who renamed it Shackleton Barracks) in 1971. It remained in use as a military airfield until 2008.
This drawing shows the impressive cantelevered hangar constructed for maintenanace of the Shackletons and opened in 1966. Eight cantilevered steel frames, provide a clear uninterupted span of 39.2 m from the front of the doors to the main upright at the rear. Anchor legs extend 7m behind the building to counter this weight and are secured to piles driven into the ground with huge cruciform dead weights on their tops. Smaller examples were built at RAF Brize Norton,Oxon.(1968) and RAF St. Magwan,(1968) but this is the most impressive example in the UK..

541.

15/1/2018

Between the two, the Fishmongers Company built a row of three cut stone houses and a row of eight cottages. They also built a dispensary for the village near the school. This view shows these buildings as they were at the end of the nineteenth century. Today, the road level has been raised to the height of the footpath and the sloping grass verge replaced by a parking layby. The stone houses remain but the cottages have all had significant dormers added. Not just as pretty, but still with a strong character.

January 08th, 2018

8/1/2018

At the other end of the village the Fishmongers Company built a large primary school in a similar style to the Presbyterian Church. Glasvey School was constructed in 1828 and, though now obscured by later planting and housing, its location was carefully chosen to close one end of the settlement with the main street splitting in two directions at the base of its garden. It closed as a school in 1966 with the Company donating it as an endowment to the University of Ulster. Today it has been converted into apartments overlooking a communal garden but it retains much of its original external character.

January 08th, 2018

8/1/2018

539. www.Marksoftime.com
This is another. Opposite the model farm is Ballykelly Presbyterian Church. Constructed in 1826, costs were fully met by the Fismongers Company, who persuaded the Presbyterians to move into the village from their previous rural location at Tullyhoe. The building is elegant and well proportioned and sits above Clooney Road looking accross to the model farm.

538

2/1/2018

In the field next to to Ballykelly Church is this elegant building. Now a private hospital with modern buildings to the rear, it was built as a model farm by the Fismonger’s Company in 1823 with wings to each side opeing to the farmyard behind and maintaining a formal facade to the road. Like in the nearby village of Eglinton the lease for the ‘proportion’ in which this village is situated reverted to the London company of the Fishmongers on the death of King George III in 1820. They also set about a vigorus campaign to improve and beautify their village in the mid nineteenth century. This was one result.