1 Church Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Plain, low, two storey rendered and gabled house of possible late 18th century construction with small full height return and long attached single storey outbuilding to rear. Details such as the large metal framed windows to the rear and the slight overhang to the roof, suggest that the property underwent extensive renovation in c.1940s. The building is set slightly below road level, at the NW end of Church Road, (next to the junction of Galgorm Road), to the N end of the small village of Gracehill.

The front façade faces roughly E and is roughly ‘symmetrical’. To the centre of the ground floor is a (recent) panelled timber door with plain rectangular fanlight and (half height) sidelights. To the far left is a plain sash window, with another to far right. To the first floor are three similar (but marginally shorter) windows.

To the S gable there is a small window to left on the ground floor with steel frame (this window is undoubtedly a c.1940s insertion), with a plain sash window to left on the first floor. The N gable is blank.

To the left of centre on the rear elevation is a full height gabled return. To the ground floor W face of this there is a timber sheeted door to right and a square-ish (c.1940s) window, with steel frame, to left. To the first floor there are two windows of differing size but both with steel frames. The N and S faces of the return are both blank. To the left of the return (on main building) there is a relatively large square-ish window to the ground floor and one to the first floor, both with steel frames. To the right of the return there projects a long single storey gabled outbuilding (see below). In the narrow space between the return and outbuilding (to ground floor of main building), there is a very narrow window with steel frame. To the first floor directly above there is a larger window, also with steel frame.

The entire façade is finished in rough cast with smooth render to edges of front facade. The roof has a slight overhang with plain barges; the main section of the roof is slated but that to the return appears to have asbestos tiles. There are fire clay ridge tiles. Three rendered chimneystacks to the main ridge, unevenly spaced, (probably a result of the building being originally part single storey). Cast iron rw goods.

The long single storey outbuilding to rear is also finished in rough cast with its roof largely slated but covered in corrugated iron to the W end (this end has also been extended slightly in timber). The roof level lowers slightly to the E end. The N façade has two timber sheeted pedestrian doors, a large flat arch vehicle door and three windows (one of which is boarded up and another obscured by greenery). To the S façade there are at least two more windows (this side was largely obscured by the closeness of a boundary hedge). To the W end of the outbuilding row there is a corrugated iron Nisson structure.

To the front (Church Road side) of the house there is a very low wall with simple (mid 1900s) railings. These enclose a small ‘forecourt’ with relatively recent looking paving with small square sets.

Historical information

The village of Gracehill was founded in later 1750s by a followers of the Moravian* evangelist John Cennick*. The land was leased from Lord O’Neill and settled by the Moravian congregation from near by Gloonan, one of a number of groups established by Cennick himself between his arrival in Ulster in c.1746 and his death in 1755. Much of the village as we see it today was built between c.1765 and the 1790s, with buildings neatly situated along the grid pattern of Church Road, Low Road (now Cennick Road) and what is now Montgomery Street and Academy Street.

In a plan of the village dating from c.1805-19 a building is shown on the site of the present no.1 Church Road. In the valuation of 1833-34 a relatively old house (grade ‘B’), matching the dimensions of the present is recorded, with the same dwelling (but now with the long outbuilding), recorded in the valuation of 1859-61. It is highly likely, therefore, that the property we see today is that of 1833 and which, according to the valuers, was built some decades prior to this- possibly in the late 1700s.

The house appears to have undergone major renovation in the mid 1900s, perhaps around c.1940. At this point the present return appears to have been added and the interior layout remodelled; the overhang suggests the roof was replaced at this time also.

In 1833 the occupant of the house is listed as an Enoch Craig, with a Miss Lennox in residence in 1859-61.

*The Moravian Church, as its name suggests, originated as a sect in Bohemia (present day Czech Republic) in the mid 1400s. Originally known as the Unitas Fratrum or ‘Unity of the Brethren’, the sect underwent persecution during the Counter-Reformation period and remained an underground movement for much of the later 16th and 17th centuries. The present of ‘Renewed Church’ dates from 1727 when refugees mainly from Moravia, who had been granted permission to settle on lands belonging to Count Nicholas von Zinzendorf on the Saxon-Polish border, set out to spread their message to other European states and beyond. Zinzendorf had initially envisaged that the ‘Moravians’ should form societies within established churches, but this was never realised and a separate church was formed.

John Cennick [?pronounced ‘Sennitch’ ?’Kennitch’] was the grandson of a Moravian who had fled to England from Bohemia in the early 1600s. Born in Reading in 1718, he became a close advocate of John Wesley in the late 1730s and a preacher of some note. After various disagreements with Wesley -Cennick was Calvinistic, Wesley was not- he was dismissed from the latter’s service in 1739 and later came in contact with some Moravian preachers in London. After being received a member of the brethren in 1746, he embarked upon an evangelising mission in Ireland, concentrating firstly in Dublin and then, between c.1748 and 1755, in Ulster. Much of his work was centred on the area immediately surrounding north-east of Lough Neagh, with converts from both RC and Presbyterian backgrounds. He established over 200 congregations, mainly in Co Antrim.

Cennick’s early death in 1755 stifled the impetus of the church in Ireland and despite the establishment of a Moravian ‘model’ village at Gracehill in the in the years following 1755 the church rapidly declined in importance throughout the country, its members, as David Hempton has stated, ‘never able to fulfil the evangelistic promise of their first decade in Ireland’.

References- Primary sources
1 Moravian Church Plan of land holdings at Gracehill c.1805-19
2 ‘OS Memoirs of Ireland…Co Antrim vol.VIII…’ ed Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB)1993, pp.18-20
3 PRONI VAL/1B/176 First valuation book, Ahoghill, 1833-34
4 PRONI VAL/1D/1/4 First valuation plan of Gracehill, 1833-34
5 PRONI VAL/2D/1/4 Second valuation plan of Gracehill, 1859
6 PRONI VAL/2B/1/64d Second valuation notebook, Gracehill, 1861

Secondary sources
1 Bro. James Mitchell, ‘A history of Gracehill’ (1943, with additions by Rev Richard Ingram, 1977)
2 S.G. Hanna, ‘The origin and nature of the Gracehill Moravian settlement’ (QUB thesis, 1967)
3 S.J. Connolly ed, ‘The Oxford companion to Irish history’ (OUP 1998), pp.80-368

Evaluation

Plain, low, two storey rendered and gabled house of possible late 18th century construction with small full height return and long attached single storey outbuilding to rear. The building was substantially altered during the mid-1900's and as a consequence lost most of its architectural quality.