Glendun Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached three-bay (main dwelling) single-storey rubblestone house, built c.1800. Rectangular on plan facing southeast with accretions to either gable end. Set within its own extensive grounds in Glendun valley at a lower level than the road and accessed via a long winding lane on the south side of Glendun Road.

Pitched natural slate roof to the central section (3 bay) with cement parged verges and two rendered chimneystacks. Corrugated iron roofs to both accretions, no rainwater goods. Whitewashed rubblestone walling. Square-headed window openings with painted concrete sills and 2/2 timber sliding sash windows with convex horns and partially exposed sash boxes.

Southeast front elevation is three bays wide with central windbreak entrance porch having flat roof with steel gutter, whitewashed squared stone walling and vertically-sheeted timber half-door. Single 2/2 timber sliding sash window opening to accretion to the LHS (south) and a single door to the RHS bay (north). Door to centre is vertically boarded with additional vertically boarded gate to lower section.

Blind southwest gable to south accretion.

Rear elevation has two timber sliding sash windows to the central section and a single window to the south accretion.

Blind northeast gable to north accretion.

Roof Natural slate
RWG None
Walling Whitewashed rubblestone
Windows Timber sliding sash

Setting:
Located along the banks of the Glendun River within its own grounds on the south side of Glendun Road. Two-bay single-storey rubblestone outbuilding encloses a small informal yard to the front of the house with a further rubblestone accretion to the north. Further single-bay single-storey rubblestone outbuilding to the south. Pitched corrugated iron roofs, whitewashed rubblestone walls and some vertically-sheeted timber doors and half-doors.

Historical information

This group of single-storey vernacular buildings, located off the Glendun Road in the townland of Beaghs, was constructed prior to 1832. The two main ranges of the farm were originally recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map (1832) which depicted them (and the smaller outbuilding to the southwest) along their current layouts. The contemporary Townland Valuations (1834) did not record any details concerning these buildings as the group were not worth the minimum £3 per annum value required to be included in the valuation source. There was no discernible change to the layout of the farm buildings by the second edition Ordnance Survey map (1857) or on the later editions (1903-04; 1922) suggesting that the farm has remained unaltered since the early-19th century.

Griffith’s Valuation (1859) set the total rateable value of the farmhouse and its outbuildings at 10 shillings and noted that the site was leased to a Mr. Bryan McKillop by St. Clair Kelburn Mulholland, a Belfast-based linen merchant and prominent landowner (who resided at Eglantine House in Hillsborough) whose daughter, Sarah Mulholland, had married into the local Dobbs family (of Glenariffe Lodge). Bryan McKillop continued to reside at the farm in Beaghs until c. 1896 when his son, John, took possession of the site. The 1901 Census of Ireland records that John McKillop occupied the farm with his wife Ellen whilst the census building return described their farmhouse as a 2nd class dwelling that possessed a thatched roof, consisted of only two rooms and possessed a stable, cow house a barn and a piggery amongst its outbuildings. The 1911 Census of Ireland records that the farmhouse’s thatch was replaced with a slate roof at some point soon after 1901. John McKillop purchased the farm outright from the Mulholland estate in c. 1922 and continued to reside at the site until his death in the 1930s. The value of the farmhouse and its outbuildings was increased to £2 and 5 shillings under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57). In c. 1956 the farm passed to McKillop’s daughter, Mary McKillop, who remained at the site until at least the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956-72) at which time the total rateable value of the farm stood at £4 and 15 shillings.

References

Primary Sources
1. PRONI OS/6/1/14/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1832)
2. PRONI OS/6/1/14/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1857)
3. PRONI OS/6/1/14/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1903-04)
4. PRONI OS/6/1/14/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1922)
5. PRONI VAL/1/A/1/14 – Townland Valuations Map (c. 1832)
6. PRONI VAL/1/B/148B – Townland Valuations (1834)
7. PRONI VAL/2/B/1/39 – Griffith’s Valuation (1859)
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/2/14A-E – Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
9. PRONI VAL/3/C/1/5 – First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57)
10. PRONI VAL/4/B/1/10 – Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956-72)
11. Ulster Town Directories (1861-1918)
12. Census of Ireland (1901; 1911)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

Detached three-bay, direct entry, single-storey rubblestone vernacular house and outbuildings built pre 1832 located in an isolated rural landscape on the banks of Glendun River in the Glens of Antrim. The grouping consists of a dwelling and associated outbuildings, forming a distinct collection of vernacular structures. The dwelling itself retains much external historic fabric such as a natural slate roof, timber sliding sash windows and a central windbreak entrance porch, retaining the character and appearance of the once dominant type of dwelling in rural Ireland. It now stands as an increasingly rare example of its type that once characterised the local area. Its interest is enhanced by its fine relatively unaltered rural setting.