34 Glasgort Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached single-storey red brick lobby-entry thatched dwelling, built c.1800, with later byre to the north gable. Rectangular on plan facing east and currently unoccupied and derelict. Located at the end of a long lane together with a further pair of derelict detached former dwellings (HB03/03/045A), a brick shooting range (HB03/03/045B) and a pair of detached dwellings built c.1980.

Pitched corrugated iron roof over original thatch roof with cement verges and red brick chimneystacks to both gable ends. Thatch roof exposed to the interior comprising rough-hewn purlins embedded in gable walls supporting unhewn timber rafters and ridge board lined with earthen sods and covered in straw thatch. Lime-wash over Agivey red brick walling laid in Flemish bond (cement render to the south gable only). Square-headed window openings with red brick flat arches, no sills and 2/2 timber sash windows with horns and exposed sash boxes.

Symmetrical front elevation has a central square-headed door opening with a window opening to the south. The north end of the elevation has collapsed.

South gable is blank and surmounted by a brick chimneystack.

Rear elevation has a pair of diminutive square-headed window openings with fixed timber windows.

North gable is abutted by a red brick byre having a corrugated asbestos roof.

Setting:
Forming part of a collection of nineteenth-century structures on a site to the west of Glasgort Road including a red brick firing range wall (HB03/03/045B), a pair of derelict former dwellings (HB03/03/045A) and a pair of mid to late twentieth-century dwellings.

Roof Corrugated iron over thatch
RWG None
Walling Agivey red brick
Windows Timber sash and fixed-pane timber casement

Historical information

The current dwelling pre-dates the first edition OS map of 1832 and was extended to the west by the second edition of 1849-53. The building is of brick of at least two different types/sizes and demonstrates the local prevalence of brick production, bricks being produced on a number of sites in the area from the early plantation era. Thatched dwellings of brick construction are extremely rare and a distinctive feature of this area.

The character of the built heritage of Agivey parish owes a great deal to local brick production, which is known to have taken place here since at least the early seventeenth century. George Canning, the agent of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers, records in 1615 the manufacture of bricks at a kiln across the Bann from Agivey where they were to be used to complete the upper floors of a stone-built castle for the ironmongers. (Hill) Brick production flourished and the first edition OS maps (1830s) of the area show brickfields all along the River Bann south of Coleraine, including in the townland of Glasgort, to the east of the present houses, a ‘Pottery’ also being captioned in the same townland. The OS Memoirs comment on the brick made in the grange [parish] of Agivey, which was used to construct local vernacular housing. The bricks were brought up the River Bann to Coleraine and sold for 10s per 1,000. (OS Memoirs)

The Parliamentary Gazetteer reports in 1846 that coarse, earthenware, bricks and tiles were made ‘in considerable quantity from a clay which abounds [in Agivey]’ and a ‘Potters Kiln’ and ‘Potters Field’ are shown on the second edition map of the 1850s in a settlement called ‘Brick Hill’ at Mullaghmore (Agivey parish). Clay of two colours, reddish and bluish-gray was used to make bricks, tiles and flower pots in the townland of Glasgort in the 1880s. (Kinahan)

Brick production appears to have gradually slackened off during the second half of the nineteenth century, but brick kilns and clay pits are still shown on the third edition OS maps of c1900 in the wider area around Agivey. Brick has been the building material of choice for much of the vernacular and more formalised housing that might otherwise have been of rubblestone construction.

The current building is not listed in the Townland Valuation (1828-40) being of too low a value, but Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) lists it as the dwelling of John Boyle who leased it from the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers. The house and outbuildings are valued at 10s. The house passed down through the Boyle family to Susan Boyle, who is listed in the 1901 census. Susan Boyle lived in the three-room thatched house with her widowed mother and her two sisters. All three sisters worked as seamstresses while their mother farmed the land, but by 1911 the sisters had also turned to farming. Susan Boyle remained resident in the 1930s by which time the house, ‘in fair repair’, was roofed with corrugated iron. The house remained in the Boyle family until 1946 when it was taken over by Henry Gill, but is now vacant.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/5/12/1 First Edition OS Map 1832
2. PRONI OS/6/5/12/2 Second Edition OS map 1849-53
3. PRONI OS/6/5/12/3 Third Edition OS Map 1904
4. PRONI OS/6/5/12/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1923
5. PRONI VAL/2/B/5/2 Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/2A-F Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
7. PRONI VAL/3/C/6/1 First General Revaluation 1933-57
8. PRONI VAL/3/D/6/3/B/2 First General Revaluation 1933-57
9. 1901/1911 census online
10. Parliamentary Gazetteer 1846

Secondary Sources

1. Day, A., P. McWilliams, English L., eds. “OS Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of County Londonderry VI, 1831, 1833, 1835-6, Vol. 22.” Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1993.
2. Day, A., P. McWilliams, English L., eds. “OS Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of County Londonderry XII, 1829-30, 1832, 1834-6, Vol. 33.” Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1995.
3. Hill, Rev George “An Historical Account of the Plantation in Ulster at the Commencement of the Seventeenth Century, 1608-1620” Belfast, McCaw, Stevenson & Orr, 1877
4. Kinahan “Economic Geology of Ireland” 1889

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Detached single-storey red brick lobby-entry thatch under tin dwelling, built c.1800. Rectangular on plan facing east. Located at the end of a long lane together with a further pair of detached former dwellings (HB03/03/045A), a brick shooting range (HB03/03/045B) and a pair of detached dwellings built c.1980. This former dwelling built using locally produced brick retains much of its original character but has lost a considerable proportion of its historic fabric and detailing and is not of sufficient interest to warrant listing.