?22a Gracefield Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Small, relatively low 1½ storey vernacular house of probable pre 1832 construction, with roughcast façade, corrugated iron-covered gabled roof and largely modern flat roofed extension to rear. The property is set on the W side of Gracefield Road, within the small hamlet of Gracefield, roughly 3 miles SW of Magherafelt. To the S side it is joined to a larger single storey house of probably the same vintage, but much ‘modernised’ in recent years.

The asymmetric front elevation faces roughly E, directly on to the roadside. Slightly to the left of centre of the ground level is a low doorway with relatively recent timber sheeted door with glazed panel. To the left of this is a small window with dilapidated single light frame (which may once have been sash). To the right of the doorway is a slightly larger window with a dilapidated sash window (vertical glazing bars- 2/2). Both ground floor windows have relatively recent looking simple ‘gabled’ surrounds. Directly above the doorway, (roughly 0.3m above), is a small window with crudely fashioned four pane frame. To the right of this is a similar window.

The N gable is blank.

To the centre of the rear elevation there is a relatively large, recent (c.1970s-80s) flat roofed extension in painted brick. To the N face of the extension there is a door. To the W face there is a relatively large window with modern frame. To the left of the extension (on rear elevation of original house), there is a small window which has been boarded up. To the right of the extension is a larger window with modern frame. To the very left hand (N) edge of the rear elevation there is large crude rubble-constructed ‘buttress’

The façade of the original building is finished in rough harling and whitewashed. The extension is in painted brick. The gabled roof is covered with corrugated iron with cement rendered parapets to the gables and a small (roughly central) rendered chimneystack. Metal guttering to front and N gable.

Historical information

Gracefield
According to the OS Memoirs of the 1830s, the small village of Gracefield was established in 1749, when some local Moravian converts acquired land in Ballymaguigan and proceeded to build the church, preacher’s house and other dwellings. This version of events is not borne out by an important contemporary source, however- the diary of the Lisnamorrow / Gracefield Moravian Congregation.

This diary, which survives for the years 1759-63, 1770-72, 1776-77, 1793-95, 1799-1800, 1804-12, 1825-27, 1848-52 and intermittently up to 1902, was written by successive Moravian ministers. It is clear from its entries -penned initially by Rev John Browne- that although there appear to have been Moravian converts in Ballymaguigan, (and the surrounding townlands), in the early 1760s, their place of worship was at a [?now gone] thatched chapel at Lisnamorrow, some miles to the south-west. It was in the Church of Ireland at Lisnamorrow that John Cennick is said to have preached in 1748 or 1749, thus suggesting that the date ‘1749’ referred to in the OS Memoirs, rather than applying to the foundation of Gracefield in particular, refers to the establishment of a Moravian congregation in this general area.

Indeed, the townland of Ballymaguigan only begins to be mentioned on a frequent basis by Rev Browne in May 1763, when, on the 9th of that month, he writes of ‘viewing the place and thinking over the situation where would be the best place to build our new church’. Land was acquired by the congregation shortly after and the following month masons are recorded as working on in the area, with Browne going with ‘Brother Jonathan Simpson to look on some timber for the building of Ballymaguigan’ in late July and acquiring ‘55 barrels of lime as preparation against spring for the building of Ballymaguigan’ in October. Unfortunately no diaries have survived [?or were ever written] for the years 1764-69, but on the last page of that for 1763 there are two sketches of roof trusses and a list of accounts, suggesting that building had begun or was about to begin.

Entries in the diary of 1770 make it clear that the chapel was in place by that date, along with a ‘congregational house’ [presumably the preacher’s residence which stood next to the church], a ‘hall’ a ‘farm house’ with frequent
references made to ‘families’ houses’. It is apparent however, that building work to the settlement as a whole was ongoing, for the minutes of a congregational meeting of 5th August, (transcribed at the end of the diary), mention ‘subscriptions for the seeling (sic ceiling) of the chappel’, whilst the construction of new houses are recorded in April and June, with a new burial ground laid out (to east of the chapel) some time early in the year. Moreover, at this point the settlement may not even had a name- simply being referred to as ‘Ballymaguigan’, the name ‘Gracefield’ first mentioned -in the diary at least- in July 1776.

The lack of regular diary entries after from 1777 onward, (or any other comprehensive source material), makes it difficult to trace the development of Gracefield in that latter decades of the 18th and opening decades of the 19th century, however it is clear that the settlement, like Moravianism in Ireland as a whole, made little headway after its initial gains of the 1760s and 70s. Evidence of this is provided by the OS map and first valuation survey, both of 1832. On the former are the church, preacher’s house and sisters’ house to the north side of the present Ballymaguigan Road, but there is little else of note save a scattering of houses stringing this and the present Gracefield Road to the south side, and a spade mill to the north-west, whilst the valuation records nothing but ‘old’ buildings with few above rateable value- suggesting most of the houses were modest single storey affairs probably dating from the establishment of the village 70 odd years before. The aforementioned OS memoirs of 1836 confirm this, telling of ‘2 little streets; one…principally formed by the Moravian church with the clergyman's residence, the sisters' house and a few other houses, all of which are neat, cleanly and uniform’, the other street consisting ‘of an irregular and straggling row of dirty houses principally occupied by the poorer class of weavers and mechanics’, adding that of the 25 houses ‘19 are 1 -storey and the remainder are 2-storey’ and that the village was ‘neither improving in size, trade or appearance’.

Although a new school house was added to the east side of the church in c.1840, the stagnation of the settlement remarked upon in the Memoirs was not reversed. The revised OS map of 1856 and the second valuation survey of the following year bear this out, both recording a picture remarkably similar to that of 1832, but with less inhabitants and (somewhat symbolically) with the spade mill to the north-west ‘in ruins’.

Though not all of the members of the Gracefield Moravian congregation lived exclusively within the village at any one point in time, the latter’s decline was intertwined with that of the congregation itself. Thus in 1937 Moravian worship within Gracefield ended and the chapel building was sold to the Church of Ireland. The attached preacher’s house was demolished some years later, with the school reverting to the role of Sunday school.

No.22a Gracefield Road
The smallness of this house and the fact that the only accurate maps of Gracefield prior to the 1920s are 6in to one mile, makes the history of this property difficult to trace. Buildings are shown on this general site on the OS maps of 1832 and 1856, but it is difficult to say whether any occupied this exact site. The house certainly appears to be shown on the 1905 edition, but, as stated above, the smallness of both house and map scale makes a comparison between each edition awkward. Things are not helped by the fact that very few houses within the village (including the ones on this general site) are recorded in the 1832 valuation, and though all are recorded in the second valuation of 1856, no dimensions are given and the accompanying valuation map -based as it is on the aforementioned 1856 OS map- raises the problems of scale and interpretation once again.

The fact that the property is vernacular, plus the fact that evidence suggests that very little building within Gracefield would appear to have been carried out after 1832 at least, would imply that the house could well date from the early 1800s or earlier. The building certainly looks as though it could well have belonged to the ‘irregular and straggling row’ of houses described by the OS Memoirs of 1836, however, with no concrete evidence it is difficult to be certain of this.

The large rear extension was added some time after 1975.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI MIC/1F/3/26 Gracefield title deeds, 1719-1927
2 PRONI MIC/1F/3/14 Registers of baptisms, marriages and burials of members of the Lisnamorrow / Gracefield Moravian Congregation, 1750-1931
3 PRONI MIC/1F/3/13 Diaries of the Lisnamorrow / Gracefield Moravian Congregation, 1759-63, 1770-72, 1776-77, 1793-95, 1799-1800, 1804-12, 1825-27, 1848-52 etc.
4 PRONI MIC/1F/3/19 Gracefield accounts, 1819-29, 1894-1917
5 PRONI VAL/1B/523 First valuation book, Artrea, 1832
6 PRONI VAL/1A/5/47 First valuation map, Co Londonderry, sh 47, 1832 [This map is based on the OS map of the same year.]
7 ‘OS Memoirs of Ireland…Co Londonderry vol.…’ ed Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB)1993
8 ‘Notes relating to the Manor of Sal, explanatory of The terrier of 1845’ (London, The Salters’ Company, 1846) [This publication relates to a survey (or ‘terrier’) of the Salters’ Company’s lands in Co Londonderry, carried out in 1845.]
9 PRONI VAL/2B/5/26a Second valuation notebook, Artrea, 1857
10 PRONI VAL/2A/5/47b Second valuation map, Co Londonderry, sh 47 (Artrea Parish) [This map is based on the OS map of the same year.]
11 Drawing of Gracefield Moravian chapel etc. by John England, 1889 [A copy of this drawing is presently kept within the church itself. Incidentally, the drawing includes the caption ‘commenced 1767’- seemingly suggesting that the chapel etc. was built in this year.]
12 PRONI OS/6/5/47/3 OS 6in map, Co Londonderry, sh 47, 1905

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

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Small, relatively low 1½ storey vernacular house of probable pre 1832 construction, with roughcast façade, corrugated iron-covered gabled roof and largely modern flat roofed extension to rear