Sherrigrim House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A three-bay one-and-a-half storey gabled house of rendered walls and slated roofs, with a long rear two-storey return which contains a basement.

It stands in a rural area set well back from the public road within its own farmland.

The main entrance faces east.
The east elevation is symmetrical, of one-and-a-half storey height, with the central main entrance flanked by one window to each side.
Walling is smooth cement rendered, with raised quoins and projecting plinth.
Roofing is of natural slates in regular courses with overhanging eaves and decorative timber barge boards of curvilinear design with turned finials. The barge boards to the central gable have cuspings some of which have foliated terminations. There are two chimneys, each of three stacks on a common base, and a common moulded stone cornice.
Rainwater goods are of cast iron comprising moulded gutters and circular downpipes.
The entrance is recessed in a segmental arched opening with moulded archivolt and plain fanlight. The door is flanked by fluted Ionic columns and sidelights with further columns at the extremities of the opening.
Windows are rectangular timber vertically hung sliding sash, without horns, 2 over 2 to the upper window over the entrance, and 6 over 6 to the ground floor windows which are surmounted at a higher level by a raised triangular pediment on brackets.

The south gable is of similar walling to the east. It contains a central first floor window, sashed 6 over 6, with horns, with a similar window, but without horns, in the ground floor below it but enclosed within a projecting lean-to conservatory. The conservatory is of glazed timber framing of plain design on a low smooth rendered plinth wall incorporating a glazed and panelled timber door in the east face.
The conservatory flooring is of original tiling of plain description, bordered by ornamented cast iron grilles.

The west or rear elevation consists of the blind wall of the main front block with a short projecting gabled return from which projects a longer rear return. The rear wall of the main front bock is smooth rendered with raised quoins, while the return and its extension are roughcast. Roofs are slated, with decorative barge boards to the short gabled return, and a hipped roof to the longer extension to the return. Each side wall of the short gabled return contains a semi-circular arched timber sashed window, without horns, 1 over 1 with tinted margins, and a smaller rectangular window comprised of a pair of coupled 6-pane fixed lights or casements.
The longer rear return extension is of two storeys, including an exposed basement where the ground level to the west falls abruptly. Its south face is in two planes, with one rectangular window to each floor in the set-back wall, similar to those of the gabled return. The projecting block contains a doorway and one rectangular window of modern creation, a small paned fixed light incorporating a central opening portion. The doorway contains a simple ledged timber door approached by a flight of concrete steps. At the western extremity is a flight of steps descending to a lower basement area. The west gable of the return extension contains three windows of varying types and pattern as on previous elevations including sliding sash, 3 over 6 to the upper floor. The north face contains three sashed windows in the upper floor similar to that of the west gable, with two windows of modern type in the lower storey along with a set of small paned French doors.

The north gable is similar to the south but without the conservatory.

SETTING: The house is approached by a driveway bordered by hedges, through a pair of chamfered gate piers now missing their original gates, and terminates in a gravelled area in front of the main entrance, bordered by trees. The area between the north side of the rear return and the driveway has been laid out as a modern rockery. On the south side of the rear return extension is a small enclosed yard laid with modern pavings and bounded by rubble stone walls. A branch of the driveway leads past the west of the house to a farmyard at the rear which contains a number of rubble stone and cement rendered outbuildings of no distinction. These were at one time the buildings of a tape factory which included a small single storey toilet at the southern tip.

Historical information

The precise date of building is not recorded but it appears on the OS map of 1906-7 for the first time, having not been on the OS map of 1854. Stylistically it looks in part like work of the 1860s but may be slightly later. It appears to have been built by John Henderson J.P. who had established in the 1830s a small tape factory - the only one in Ireland - in outbuildings, now in farm use, at the rear of the house. This tape factory had expanded into a significant business, giving employment to over 150 people, until it was destroyed by fire in 1913.

References - Primary Sources
1. OS Map of 1854 (not shown on it).
2. OS Map of 1906-7 (is shown on it).

Secondary Sources
1. UAHS, Dungannon and Cookstown (Belfast, 1971), p 48.
2. A.J. Rowan, The Buildings of Ireland: North-West Ulster (Harmondsworth, 1979), p 229 (but Rowan mistakenly ascribes a Late Georgian date to it).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This is a mid-to-late Victorian house in an amalgam of Classical Revival and picturesque cottage styles, the former represented by the columnated doorcase and the pedimental features on the entrance front, and the plasterwork details inside, and the latter represented by the ornamental timber barge boards, and the overall form of the small gablet on the entrance front. It appears to retain most of its original exterior features, including sashed windows, as well as key elements of the interior such as the staircase. It enjoys a pleasant rural setting which compliments its modest architectural charm, whilst its limited intrinsic historical interest is enhanced by its association with Ireland's first tape factory which was set up in what is now its outbuildings, although the physical evidence of the factory is limited.