Thatched House.

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A smooth rendered white washed thatched house three rooms long. The thatch extends over two rooms and there is green painted corrugated metal over the other. This extends over the adjacent outhouse with rooflight. The building continues in line but now in the original basalt walls with natural slated roof ending in a gable. The whole forms the typical long complex of the Magilligan area with the long axis oriented E/W following the drainage lines towards Lough Foyle. The thatched part makes a pretty picture with central sheeted door and on either side, widely spaced, small paned Georgian wooden sashes, nine panes to each window. There is a white washed chimney at each end with the white extending over the gable wall and the sides of the roped thatch, which is rye straw. A black painted plinth finishes the bottom of the wall where the footings project. To the rear a single nine pane sash window to the kitchen punctuate the wall. The roof thatch is a little more ragged on the back slope.

Historical information

A building is shown on this site on the OS map of 1830-31, but it appears to be somewhat shorter than that we see today, suggesting that the outhouses had not been added yet. Unfortunately the property is not recorded in the contemporary valuation.

The second valuation of 1857 notes that the house was then occupied by a John Begley, who leased it from Sir Frederick Heygate. The rateable valuation is recorded as 15/-.

The present occupant (September 1997), who came here c.1917 aged three to live with her grandparents, states that the room with the corrugated metal roof is not an extension, merely a section whose thatch had to be removed after truss cracked. She also stated that no significant alterations had been made to the property in her lifetime, except for the tiling around the fire, and that the property was once home to eleven people.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/1A/5/5 OS map, County Londonderry sheet 5, with valuation
references, (1830 / 31-c.38)
2 PRONI VAL/2A/5/5A Revised OS map, County Londonderry sheet 5, with valuation references, (1857)
3 PRONI VAL/2B/5/23 Second valuation, Magilligan, (1857)

Secondary sources
1 Information supplied by the owner (September 1997)

The occupant has lived in the house for 80 years having come there age three to be brought up by her grandparents. The cottage did not change during her lifetime except for the tiling around the fire. The cottage is indicated on the Ordnance Survey Sheet of 1831. N.B. The room with the green corrugated metal roof is not an extension as previously noted by Historic Buildings. Rather the thatch was replaced when a roof truss cracked and had to be changed. 11 people once lived in the house

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Z. Rarity
W. Northern Ireland/International Interest

Evaluation

A fine example of the small late Georgian vernacular thatched house with the extended out houses in line, almost complete in structural detail, secondary elements and furniture. It is a good illustration of the typical setting of of the small Magilligan farmhouse complex.