Dunminning Cottage

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single storey, two bay direct entry house with hipped thatched roof and whitened plastered wall finish.

The building faces south-west and occupies a plot at the north-east corner of a crossroads that occurs about three and a half miles north of Cullybackey travelling towards Ballymoney.

A corbelled red brick chimney rises at the centre of the ridge. A small skylight set into the rear slope of the thatch covering is now obscured.

The base and the extremities together with the window sills are painted in a contrasting shade on the front elevation.

There are three pointed openings on the front elevation. Starting from the left (south-west) corner the sheeted entrance door is flanked to the right by two vertically sliding windows with Y-shaped astragals in the top sashes and with the bottom sashes divided into four panes. The sills are narrow.

There is a sixteen-pane (4x4) casement window in the south-east gable and the opposite gable is windowless.

There are two single storey extensions at the rear roofed with corrugated iron and having plastered finishes. The first extending from the north-west corner of the house has a roof of composite form starting with a pitch that develops into a lean-to. The end (north-east) elevation is dressed with a timber bargeboard and fascias. A pair of timber ties fixed to the bargeboard support a mast with an electric lantern. Below this there is a timber sheeted door and a metal-framed window lights the south-east side. The roof of the second extension is of the lean-to variety. The entrance door is timber sheeted and there are two metal-framed windows in the end (north-east) wall.

Historical information

A building matching the main (front) section of the present is shown on the OS map of 1832 / 33. The property is not recorded in the first valuation of c.1835, but appears to be listed in the c.1860 valuation as a ‘gate lodge’ occupied by a John Hamilton, with John Patrick Esq the lessor.

C.E.B Brett, in the ‘Buildings of County Antrim’ (published 1996) states that the property ‘is said to have been built to house the toll-keeper of [nearby] Dunminning Bridge’ and that ‘when responsibility for the bridge was assumed by the Grand Jury, the house was bought by the Patricks of Dunminning as a residence for their gardener, and a matching doorway was opened in the demesne wall immediately opposite his cottage’. The latter half of the this statement ties in with the valuation evidence of c.1860, with gardener’s houses and gate lodges a frequently interchangeable class of building. The property’s planned picturesque appearance suggests the idea of it originally acting as a toll-keeper’s house is plausible also.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/1A/1/27 OS map, County Antrim sheet 27, with valuation
references (1832 / 33-c.38)
2 PRONI VAL/2A/1/65B OS map, County Antrim sheet 27, with valuation references (1857-c.60)
3 PRONI VAL/2B/1/34A Second valuation, Rasharkin (c.1860)

Secondary sources
1 Girvan, W.D., ‘Lists of Historic Buildings…North Antrim’ (Belfast, 1970), p.28
2 Gailey, Alan, ‘Rural Houses of the North of Ireland, pp.4, 6
3 Pierce, Richard, Cooey, Alistair and Oram, Richard, ‘Taken for Granted…’ (Belfast, 1984), p.63
4 Brett, C.E.B., ‘The Buildings of County Antrim’ (Belfast, 1996), p.220
5 OS Map, st. Edition1832, Co. Antrim, Sheet 27.
Other references
1 EHS Survey of Thatched Buildings, report by Colin Hatrick, 1992
2 EHS Monitoring of Thatched Buildings, report by Colin Hatrick, 18 May 1994
3UAHS West Antrim 1970, page 29, item 97, including a photograph on the cover of the publication

The house appears on the OS map of 1834 in present form without rear extensions. Another building is shown at right angles on the west side of the site.
Only the existing building appears on the OS map of 1857 also without the rear extensions that form part of the present layout.Co. Antrim Sheet 27.
A re-thatching scheme had been completed at the time of the monitoring inspection in 1994 and it was noted that the structure of the building required repair.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Z. Rarity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Located about three and a half miles north of Cullybackey, this is a single storey, two bay, direct entry house with hipped slated roof and whitened plastered wall finish. It dates from at least the early 19*th.C. It is described by Gailey as a landlord-influenced hipped-roof dwelling of the gate-lodge type.
The two bay layout is of interest and its retention is conditioned by the hipped roof construction that is unsuitable for lateral extension. This is a rare example of this type of roof. There is another at Lower Ballinderry, Co. Antrim and others have been noted in Fermanagh.