Hawthorn Heights

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached symmetrical one-and-half-storey rendered house, built c.1820, remodelled c.1930, with rear porch and single-storey rubblestone ranges to both gable ends. Rectangular on plan facing west and located at the end of a long lane to the east of Leeke Road.

Pitched natural slate roof with clay ridge tiles and a profiled red brick chimneystack to either gable end. Cast-iron rainwater goods. Flint-dashed cement rendered walls with smooth rendered plinth course and corners. Square-headed window openings with moulded architrave surrounds and masonry sills (all secured with sheets of corrugated iron).

Symmetrical front elevation is three windows wide having a central wall-head dormer over the main entrance (also secured with corrugated iron sheets).

Gabled north side elevation abutted by a lower single-storey rubblestone range set back from the front elevation with a single window opening to the attic.

Symmetrical rear elevation abutted by gabled rear entrance porch. Painted rough-cast rendered walling.

Gabled south side elevation abutted by a lower single-storey rubblestone range set back from the front elevation with a single window opening to the attic.

Setting

Located on an elevated site at the end of a long lane to the east of Leek Road. The linear ranges to either gable end have lime rendered rubblestone walls with red brick surrounds to door and window openings having sheeted timber and steel doors. Natural slate roofs to the south range, corrugated iron to the north range. Further single-storey rubblestone outbuilding to the east with slate roof. Overgrown front garden enclosed by a hedgerow and iron pedestrian gate on rendered posts and screen wall.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Cast-iron
Walling Flint-dash render / rough-cast
Windows Boarded up

Historical information

The current dwelling house was substantially remodelled in 1929, but abutting/surrounding farm buildings are of an earlier date, some pre-dating the first ordnance survey of 1831-2.

A building is shown on the first edition OS map of 1831-2 which occupies the footprint of the present-day two storey dwelling house, but is likely to have been a single-storey vernacular dwelling at this stage. By 1855 (second edition OS map) an addition had been made to the south, and the third edition of 1904 shows further separate structures to the north and east which have survived.

Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) records the site as two separate holdings, but the occupier of the main dwelling house was Andrew Edgar (also occasionally recorded as ‘Eagar’), who leased the farm of over 12 acres from Eliza Moore. The buildings were valued at £1. Andrew Edgar remained resident at the time of the 1901 census, but was an 87-year-old retired widower. His son James ran the farm, and also living at the house were James’s wife and their five children together with a resident farm servant. The four-room thatched house was designated second class (1901 census).

The farm passed down through the Edgar family and the original dwelling house was raised and remodelled in 1929, entailing a rise in the valuation of the farm buildings to £4.10s. Valuer’s notes of the 1930s record the accommodation as a reception and kitchen on the ground floor with four small bedrooms on the upper floor. An attached plan shows that the structures abutting the farm house to the south were a stable and barn, with a milking house and byre to the rear. Abutting the farmhouse to the north were another former dwelling house which was used in the 1930s for boiling potatoes. A further abutting structure to the north was a poultry house and a separate structure to the north was used as a piggery and open shed.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/6/1 First Edition OS Map 1831-2
2. PRONI OS/6/1/6/2 Second Edition OS map 1855
3. PRONI OS/6/1/6/3 Third Edition OS Map 1904
4. PRONI OS/6/1/6/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1922-31
5. PRONI OS/6/1/6/5 Fifth Edition OS Map 1946-50
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/6/1A-C – Annual Revisions (1862-1929)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/4/4A-C Annual Revisions (1895-1930)
8. PRONI VAL/3/C/1/14 First General Revaluation 1933-57
9. PRONI VAL/3/D/1/8/L/8 First General Revaluation 1933-57
10. 1901 census online

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Detached symmetrical one-and-half-storey rendered house, built c.1820, remodelled c.1930 with rear porch and single-storey rubblestone ranges to both gable ends. A modest house that was likely to have been built as a mid nineteenth-century vernacular dwelling, subsequently having had its front elevation changed during the turn of the last century. It does not meet the criteria for listing.