Thatched House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A six bay long basalt built thatched house with gabled ends, three chimneys and jamb wall entry. The thatch is neatly done in marram grass or bent with the typical fringe eaves finish neatly trimmed and roped. The owner did the thatching himself with bent cut from the M O D lands with permission. The windows on the front elevation are sliding sashes, four divided into four panes with two windows to each room and one window to the kitchen with nine panes. One pair, the east, has lower cills. The door is sheeted. The window and door heads are finished in painted brickwork. There is about 500mm of walling above the window heads which are in line with the door head. The window reveals are painted white. There is a chimney at each gable and the chimney to the kitchen hearth just misses the thatch ridge. To the rear there are simple windows to kitchen and rooms. The rear wall must have, in the past showed signs of pushing outwards as there are two massive buttresses lending support at the dividing walls. At the east gable there is a lean-to concrete block shed. This conceals two ground floor windows now blocked up and above these are two further blocked up windows which formerly lit the loft. To the west end in line with the house is a long low out house with corrugated metal roof laid to a low pitch and the ridge very much lower than that of the house. The outhouse while in line with the cottage back wall is set back 450mm at the front.

The
setting is typical of the farmhouse complexes in this area with the long axis of the structures following the drainage lines.

Historical information

A house matching the present is shown on the OS map of 1830-31. It is recorded in the contemporary valuation as the home of a [?] Coyle, with a rateable value of £2-13-0, but unfortunately no dimensions or ‘quality letter’ are supplied. A Francis Dogherty is listed in the second valuation of 1857 as the occupant, with Sir Frederick Heygate the immediate lessor. By this stage the rateable value had fallen to 15/-.

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/1B/519A-C First valuation, Magilligan, (1831)
3 PRONI VAL/2A/5/5A Revised OS map, County Londonderry sheet 5, with valuation references, (1857)
4 PRONI VAL/2B/5/23 Second valuation, Magilligan, (1857)

Details of the house were obtained from the owner. The cottage is indicated on 1831 Ordnance Survey Sheet.

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

W. Northern Ireland/International Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

A good example of the small late Georgian vernacular house thatched with bent and with the out house in line and the whole built in basalt. Further it would appear to be the only example of a jamb wall in this locality.