RIAI | Irish Architecture Awards

Citation

Northern (under €300,000)

The repair of the complex roof of this near derelict early eighteenth century building took enormous courage for both client and architect. Its evident success, the carefulness of scholarship and detailing, the rightness of the materials provides an example to be referred to and deferred to.

Architects Comments
The castle has been described by several historians as having been built in 1718, probably because of the date-stone that survives above the entrance door. During our survey we discovered that the building was much older, probably dating from the early seventeenth century, with a significant programme of alteration and extension in 1718. The triple-stack roof from 1718 is not only one of the oldest surviving roofs in the country, but many of its large section timber members were reused floor beams, complete with joist sockets, salvaged from an earlier house. Quite remarkably the original roof covering, consisting of pegged stone slates, was intact, though in a very poor state of repair. The stone slates were quarried locally and the individual slates were graded from eaves to ridge, and in addition to the pegs were bedded in lime and sand. Another remarkable feature of this roof as that apart from the stone-capped front ridge, all other ridges to the main roof and flankers were made of lime and sand. Although this roof had been leaking for over forty years, during which time inappropiate and ineffective cement and bitumen repairs had been carried out, it had survived for an astonishing 280 years.

It became immediately apparent that the roof structure was of great cultural significance and had to be retained and repaired, and that the very beautiful grey-green stone slates should be salvaged and reused at least on the principal east-facing roof and flankers. A programme of extensive repair and replacement was carried out to the roof structure, where approximately 10% of the rafters and 70% of the main structural members including purlins ridge and valley beams were saved. The rainwater disposal system was replaced in cast iron and many new sliding sash widows were installed.

The building, described as "derelict" in the 1970’s and 80’s, is now dry, ventilated and its future is secured. The varied colours and textures of the stone-faced roofs are extremely beautiful and the only example of stone slate roofing we know of on a major building in Ireland.

Client Comments
The Innishowen Peninsula was controlled by Irish clans until the early seventeenth century when the lands on which Buncrana Castle stands passed in to the ownership of the Vaughan family. The Vaughans, who were planters and military adventurers from Wales, retained Buncrana for the next two centuries. During this period Captain John Vaughan oversaw the building of the city walls and Cathedral in Derry between 1614-1633. It is probable that the Vaughans built the seventeenth-century house, which they later remodelled during the early eighteenth century. In the nineteenth century, ownership of the castle changed hands twice and during the early twentieth century it was used as a convalescent home for British Army Officers after the Great War.

The original demesne was subsequently divided and the castle purchased by my family in 1945. It is now used mainly at weekends and holidays. The roof system had been leaking badly for several decades and a makeshift system of internal water collection and dispersal was installed to reduce further damage to the first and ground floor rooms, many of which contain early eighteenth-century panelling. A grant from the Heritage Council funded the initial report and on the recommendations of this an emergency rescue plan was put in place to repair the roof, renew gutters and down-pipes, clear drains and replace missing and damaged windows.

A local contractor carried out the work with great skill, patience and attention to detail, using lime mortars and renders for the first time. I was initially very sceptical about the recommendation by the architects to re-use the old stone slates with lime bedding. By the end of the job, however, I had sufficient confidence in these traditional materials to agree to the re-plastering the ridges using lime and sand, repeating the previous 300-year-old detail. The end results of the repairs are much more than I could ever have expected and the stone slate roofs in particular are a visual delight.