10-12 Cullycapple Park

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A derelict two-storey terrace of eight houses aligned approximately N-S just east of a minor road through the hamlet of Cullycapple. For descriptive purposes, the houses are numbered 1 to 8 from N to S.
Shared pitched natural slate roof over tied common rafters, now intact only to nos 1-3, and collapsed or missing thereafter. Brick chimneys on both gables and on party walls between houses. Walls of whitewashed handmade red brick with projecting brick eaves course. Rainwater goods missing.
The principal elevation of the terrace faces W. When in use, each house had a beaded t&g door at left and a 6/6 sliding sash timber window at right on the GF, and a 3x2-paned timber window at FF level, directly above the GF one; both windows had sandstone cills. Today, the only original door to survive is no.6, the rest having been replaced or are missing. Most original windows survive, but some have been replaced with casements or are missing. All have flat brick heads. The stone cills to nos 1 and 2 have been replaced with concrete. At no.8, at the S end, the GF façade has been rebuilt to accommodate a wide vehicle opening supported by a flat timber lintel; the wall above is missing.
The N gable is devoid of openings.
The rear (E) elevation is heavily overgrown with ivy. The FF wall of no.8 (at left end) is missing but is otherwise intact. There is a window to GF and FF of each house, variously 2/2, 4/4 and 6/6 timber sashes where surviving.
The S gable’s FF is missing, and its GF is devoid of openings.
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Setting
The terrace is surrounded by fields to N, E and S. At west is another abandoned terrace of houses, and at SW is an unsurfaced access lane from the public road. Extensive views to N and E.

Roof: Pitched natural slate
Rainwater goods: Missing
Walls: Brick
Windows: 2x2, 4x4 and 6/6 timber sash

Historical information

This terrace of eight houses, and another of six, first appear in the Valuation revision book for 1872. The former is undoubtedly the one under review, and the latter the neighbouring block along the E side of the public road. All belonged to Thomas Barklie & Co, owners of a nearby beetling and bleach mill complex (HB03/03/046). A number of other houses were also constructed in Cullycapple for the mill workers at various other times as well.
This terrace is first shown on the 1904 OS map and also appears on subsequent editions. By the 1973 edition, however, only the two houses at the N end of the terrace are numbered, implying that the other six were vacant by that time. Their inhabitants had apparently moved to a NI Housing Executive estate at Clarehill. The house at the north end was the last to be vacated, in the mid-1990s.

References - Primary sources:
1. PRONI VAL/12/B/30/2B. Valuation revision book, 1865-80, pp 16-17, entry 13C, nos 1-6, 7-14.
2. PRONI OS/10/5/19/1/1. First edition OS 25-inch map, Co Londonderry sheet 19-01 (1904).
3. PRONI OS/10/5/19/1/2. Second edition OS 25-inch map, Co Londonderry sheet 19-01 (1923).
4. PRONI OS/11/31/10/1. First edition OS 25-inch map, IG sheet 31-10 (1973).
5. Information from the current owner (2013).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A two-storey brick terrace of eight houses erected for mill workers in the early 1870s. Although of some architectural interest in having a direct-entry floor plan reminiscent of vernacular dwellings, and of some local historical interest due to its association with the nearby bleach mill (HB03/03/046), this now very derelict block is not of sufficiently special merit to warrant listing.