61 Killyvalley Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A symmetrical two-storey three-bay late eighteenth-century farmhouse, set parallel to Killvvalley Road, Garvagh. Rectangular on plan, with attached single-storey outbuilding set perpendicular to rear.

Pitched natural slate roof with cement rendered gable chimneystacks rising from cement rendered verges and uPVC rainwater goods on rendered eaves; modern rooflights to front and rear, and dormer insertion to rear. Walling is roughcast render with smooth rendered plinth course and stepped quoins, painted grey. Windows are uPVC replacements to front, timber casements to rear, with one remaining original diminutive 2/2 sash to north-west gable attic. Front windows have painted moulded masonry architraves and painted projecting masonry cills.

Principal elevation faces north-west and is five windows wide to each floor, those to outer bays being more closely spaced. Openings are arranged about a central entrance comprising uPVC door set in simple classical surround of fluted pilasters and plain entablature; addressed by a concrete step.

North-east gable has a uPVC window to ground floor and a diminutive sash to attic.

Rear elevation has irregularly spaced fenestration; central stairwell window at mid-level and uPVC door set to right of centre. Large gabled dormer insertion to centre of rear pitch, with two rooflights to either side. Abutting at ground floor left is a roughcast outbuilding with pitched tin roof and replacement stable doors.

South-east gable has a uPVC window to ground floor and attic.

Setting:
The house occupies a rural farmland
setting, set parallel to and slightly back from the road behind a small lawned garden, bounded by a roughcast boundary wall with smooth rendered plinth and no coping; at centre, leading to a path, is a wrought iron hoop gate supported on smooth rendered pointed piers. Farmyard to rear accessed to left of house via a pair of circular piers with shallow conical caps, supporting a pair of steel gates. Concrete yard bounded by modern farm sheds, with exception of a two-storey rubble stone outbuilding to south-east corner; the roof has collapsed, walling is random rubble stone, partially coursed; openings are formed in brick, those to loft having timber infil. Original stable stalls and cobbled floor to ground level. Of particular note is rectangular hay shed with rubble stone walls on three sides and open to the yard. The barrell vaulted corrugated iron roof is supported on segmental steel trusses.

Roof: Slate
Walling: Render
Windows: uPVC
RWG: Plastic

Historical information

The present dwelling is said to date from 1799 and appears on the first edition OS map of 1832. (www.garvaghtown.com) A surviving outbuilding to the south east of the house is shown on this early map and therefore pre-dates 1832. The Townland Valuation (1828-40) lists the house, at £5.18s and the occupier as Thomas Mayne. Dimensions are given for the slated house and a number of ancillary structures, all thatched, the house of Mayne’s mother, a byre, a ‘car house’ and a barn. Thomas Mayne was the minister of Main Street Presbyterian Church, Garvagh and the Mayne family had connections with the Erskin Mayne bookshop in Belfast. The house is said to have been the first slated two storey house in Garvagh district. (www.garvaghtown.com)

The second edition of 1849-53 shows the current house with abutting outbuilding to the rear. At the time of Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) the occupier was Robert Clarke and the property was leased from the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers. The house, situated in a plot of 31 acres, was valued at £5.10s. The property passed to William Clarke in 1887 and in 1878 some of the land on the farm was given up for the construction of the Derry Central Railway between Macfin Junction and Magherafelt which opened in 1880. (McCutcheon) The house continued to pass down through the Clarke family for some years, becoming their property in fee in 1891 under land purchase legislation. In 1882 Robert Clarke died, leaving another farm, Brookfield, as well as the present farm in Ballyagan to his sons. As was common he was anxious to leave his wife well-provided for and stipulated in his will that whoever was to run the farm at Ballyagan must provide his wife with ‘the free use of a cow, with sufficiency of turf or fuel, potatoes and oatmeal’ and should pay her £15 annually as well as allowing her to continue to live in the house. (Will of Robert Clarke)

At the time of the 1901 census, Fanny Clarke, widow was living in the house with her two sons, one of whom was a graduate of the Royal University of Ireland, and the family kept a general domestic servant, a 15-year-old girl. The eleven-room house was designated first class. (1901 census)

Valuer’s notes of the 1930s give the occupier as Matthew Clarke and list the accommodation as a storeroom, two receptions, kitchen, scullery and pantry with four bedrooms upstairs. The house is judged to be ‘old’ with low ceilings. A plan and dimensions are given.
The house was listed in 1977 and renovated in the late 1990s, when the roofspace was converted. The first survey card refers to 12-pane Georgian glazing and a four-pane fanlight which have now gone. (HB file)

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/5/18/1 First Edition OS Map 1832
2. PRONI OS/6/5/18/2 Second Edition OS map 1849-53
3. PRONI OS/6/5/18/3 Third Edition OS Map 1904-5
4. PRONI OS/6/5/18/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1924-33
5. PRONI VAL/1/B/54A-C Townland Valuation (1828-40)
6. PRONI VAL/2/B/5/10 Griffiths Valuation (1861)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/12A-F Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
8. PRONI VAL/3/C/6/1 First General Revaluation 1933-57
9. PRONI VAL/3/D/6/3/F/1 First General Revaluation 1933-57
10. 1901 census
11. HB file – 03/03/036
12. PRONI Will of Robert Clarke, died 8th January 1882

Secondary Sources

1. McCutcheon, W.A. “The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland,” London: HMSO, 1980.
2. www.garvaghtown.com

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

61 Killyvalley Road is a simple Georgian farmhouse of two storeys and three bays, composed on symmetrical plan about a central entrance. Enlivened by simple classical detailing to the openings, the building is representative of the formalisation of modest farm buildings in the late eighteenth/early nineteenth century. It has been degraded by the addition of inappropriate windows, but otherwise remains an interesting farmhouse in an unspoioled rural setting which is enhanced by the front gate and barrel vaulted hay shed to the rear.

General comments

Listing Criteria R - Age; and S - Authenticity also apply.