71 Nursery Road Gracehill Tullygowan Ballymena Co. Antrim BT42 2QA

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached four-bay two-storey farmhouse, built in c1840. A gabled slate roof, with painted timber verge, flush eaves, and cast-iron rainwater goods, has rendered chimneystacks at either gable with one mid-ridge. Walls are mainly dashed set within smooth render corners and split horizontally by band courses at mid-ground floor, first floor cill and eaves level and deep base plinth. Rear elevation (E)) is rubblestone. Openings are square headed throughout, and windows are multi-pane timber sliding sash with externally visible box sash, however roadside ground floor windows and the main entrance doorway are boarded and cannot be confirmed.

SETTING
Farmhouse fronts onto Nursery Road at the junction with Ballykennedy Road. A single storey outbuilding is attached to the SW corner and bordering Ballykennedy Road its rear wall continues as a rubble stone wall along the roadside to form the SW boundary of the main farmyard. Three modern farm buildings enclose the main farmyard to the North and form a second farmyard.

PLAN
The house has an elongated rectilinear plan form.

FRONT ELEVATION (E).
Four bay, dashed with smooth render horizontal bands, and square headed openings, smooth plaster surrounds to window and door openings formally arranged with an unadorned off-centre doorway. Four over eight multi-pane timber sliding sash windows at first floor. Ground floor door and window openings are boarded.

SIDE ELEVATION (S)
Fronts onto Ballykennedy Road presenting a dashed gable with three smooth render bands and a single ground floor window (boarded). Single storey outbuilding abuts the SW corner with a rear wall that forms the roadside boundary and extends as a rubblestone/ part-rendered wall along the roadside to enclose the rear farmyard.

REAR ELEVATION (W)
Rear elevation is rubblestone, informally arranged, with some partial render and brick infill around square-headed openings. Ground floor has a single door opening with vertical sheet timber door, one eight-over-eight multi-pane timber sliding sash window and two six-over-six multi-pane timber sliding sash windows. A single storey outbuilding with mono-pitch roof abuts SW corner.
First floor has three-over-six multi-pane timber sliding sash windows with a single six-over-six multi-pane timber sliding sash window set lower than the others. The windows on the rear elevation have exterior box sash, mounted flush with the exterior wall.

SIDE ELEVATION (N)
Devoid of openings, the dash finish is broken into four panels by the smooth render corners and band course at mid-ground floor, first floor cill and eaves and the base plinth.

OUTBUILDINGS

Outbuilding 1 is single storey with a mono-pitch roof and attached to the SW corner of the main farmhouse. The rear wall forms part of the SW rubble stone boundary wall that encloses the main farmyard.

Outbuilding 2 is a concrete block and render barn with dual pitched slate roof and a mono pitch slate roof return attached to the south gable.

Outbuilding 3 is a corrugated metal clad barn with barrel vault roof that encloses the main farmyard while addressing a second farmyard to the north.

Outbuilding 4 is a corrugated metal clad barn with dual pitch roof sited to the east of the second farmyard.

MATERIALS
Walls – Rubblestone, with three elevations pebble dash render
Roof - Welsh slate
Rainwater goods - cast-iron
Windows and doors - timber

Historical information

A building of similar plan and positioning to the present – but without any attendant outbuildings - is shown on the OS map of 1833. This property is not recorded in the near contemporary valuation however, suggesting it was a relatively modest structure, most likely single-storey, and probably thatched.

On the revised OS map of 1857 an arrangement more akin to the current house and attached outbuilding is depicted, but with the latter larger and L-shaped. In the second valuation of c.1859 the concern is noted as a ‘house, offices [i.e. outbuildings] and land’ leased by William McCann from Rev. Robert Wilson Rowan (of Mount Davys, Cardonaghy TD, Galgorm), with the buildings themselves valued at £9. As no dimensions are supplied by the valuers, we cannot be certain whether the house at that date was the same building we see today; however, as there is no record of any major subsequent alterations, we can assume that the present structure was standing at that point. Therefore, it is likely that the house was constructed sometime between the mid-1830s and the mid to later 1850s. It is possible that the building is based on a heightening of the pre-1833 structure, but a visual inspection of the rubble construction of the rear wall shows no obvious indication of this, at least, having been raised.

William McCann was succeeded as tenant shortly before 1872 by David Clarke. In the same year the rateable value of the buildings was lowered to £8, perhaps due to disrepair. A letting advertisement placed by a 'David Clarke' of Gloonan in the ‘Ballymena Observer’ in March 1878 referring to ‘that house in Tullygowan on the leading road from Gracehill to Randalstown…well adapted to the carrying on the grocery or manufacturing business’, looks to be a reference to this property, and also indicates that whilst Clarke held the lease, he did not (or had ceased to) actually live there.

Henry James Clarke is recorded as the leaseholder in 1890, and in 1893 the value was reduced again, to £5-10-0, with the valuers remarking that the house, (which they note as measuring 16yds x 7 x 2[storeys]), was ‘old’ and the ‘offices down’. This would seem to suggest that the building may not have been occupied on a regular basis during the years following 1878, a theory supported by the fact that the house does not appear to have been recorded in neither the 1901 nor the 1911 census. After 1893 the valuers refer to the building as a ‘caretaker’s house’, though it is uncertain as to what this actually entailed.

Henry James Clarke acquired the freehold of the property from the Rowan estate in 1922. He is still listed as the leaseholder up until at least 1929 but seems to have died either in that year or early 1930. The current appearance of the building, in particular the render to the front and gables, as well as the overhanging roof, suggests refurbishment was carried out at some point during these decades, possibly shortly after the ownership changed hands in 1922. The outbuildings to the north of the house may have been added at this time also (they were not there prior to 1921.)

The house was acquired by a family called Hilton at some point in the 1930s. It was last occupied c.1990s.

The current owner states that the building (or perhaps its predecessor) has a connection to events during the 1798 Rebellion. He also believes that at one point – possibly in the 19th century - the room to the south acted as a ‘public house’ of sorts for those wishing to imbibe beyond (tea-total) confines of nearby Gracehill, and that what is now the window to the south gable was originally the entrance to this establishment.

References – Primary sources
1 OS maps, 6inch County series, Antrim sheet 37 – 1833, 1857, 1903, 1921; IG series sheet 67-14 - 1968, 1986
2 PRONI VAL2B/1/64B Second valuation, Ahoghill parish – c.1859
3 PRONI VAL12B/3/1A-E Annual valuation revision books, Ahoghill ED – 1865-1929
4 ‘Ballymena Observer’ – 30 March 1878, p.4; 10 January 1930, p.10
5 Google Maps Images of 71 Nursery Rd, Gracehill Ballymena BT42 2QA – November 2008 https://www.google.com/maps/@54.8424948,-6.3284913,3a,75y,322.36h,81.93t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s16_0TbyDaZUnUzQukFDTAA!2e0!5s20081101T000000!7i13312!8i6656?entry=ttu

Secondary sources
7 Information from owner - September 2023

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A four bay two-storey 1840’s Farmhouse prominently sited on the corner of the junction of Nursery Road and Ballykennedy Road, Gracehill making it a focal point within the surrounding countryside. With pebble dash render to front and side elevations, the house has a formalised front elevation whilst to the rear a more informal arrangement with exposed random rubble stone. Windows and doors are historic. A slated pitched gable roof with original cast iron rainwater goods. An attached small single storey outbuilding to the rear and stone courtyard wall extending along Ballykennedy road contribute to the charming overall arrangement and setting of the building. A barn and two other modern farm buildings are sited to the north of the rear yard.

General comments

Previous LQ HB07/LQ075