7 Killeter Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

The house is approached by means of a lane that travels to the north-west a short distance from the western outskirts of Castlederg. After passing the site of a former corn mill the house is seen immediately to the north.

This is a two bay direct entry whitened thatched building. The building faces south-east and is entered by a timber ledged braced and sheeted door recessed within a windbreak porch having curved jambs.

The roof, thatched between parapet gables, extends over the porch and at the rear it also covers the bed outshot. Each gable rises to a chimneystack with capping. That on the left south-west has two red clay pots and that on the right (north-east) has one that is provided with a spark arrester.

The building is of mud-walled construction with a whitened plaster finish above a black plinth. The porch is flanked on either side by a vertically sliding window with single vertical division of the sashes. There are no openings at the left (south-west) side or the rear but there is a modern casement window in the right hand (north-east) gable lighting the upper accommodation.

A bed outshot projects beside the kitchen hearth at the rear of the south-west corner of the building.

Contiguous pitched roofed outbuildings on the north-east side are first a whitened stone built structure with corrugated iron roof finished with a concrete parapet and rooflight on the rear slope and then a structure constructed entirely of corrugated iron with an opening at the rear sealed with the same material and finished at the gable with a concrete coping.

Historical information

A building is shown on this site on the OS map of 1834. This house, as the contemporary valuation confirms, was then the ‘miller’s dwelling’, relating to a corn mill then leased by ‘Kyle & Co.’ The dwelling is recorded by the valuers as an old, but well maintained, thatched building (quality letter ‘3C+’) measuring 29ft x 16½x 5½. Single-storey outbuildings and the single-storey mill (to the south of the house) are also recorded. The near contemporary OS Memoirs state that the mill had an undershot wheel 12ft (diameter) x 1ft 10 inches.

A ‘miller’s house’ is recorded in the second valuation of 1859, along with the corn mill, kilns and offices, however no details regarding the buildings are supplied. Kyle & Co. are, again, listed as the leaseholders in the this valuation, with Lord Castle Stewart the lessor, and the rateable value calculated at £20.

A request for listing was received from Shelter on 15 September 1983 and the building was listed on 29 September 1984. Repairs to the thatch and other elements of the property were carried out in 1986, with further repairs in 1989.

The house was occupied when visited as part of the Survey of Thatched Buildings in 1992 and the condition of the thatch noted as fair. It was unoccupied when inspected on 30 May 1994. The condition had deteriorated to poor and re-thatching was recommended, or at least the undertaking of a ‘holding operation’ involving patching and stitching.

Reconsideration of listing was requested by the owner in September 1996, however he was informed on 8 December 1997 that Listed Building Consent to demolish would not be forthcoming, and was requested to sell the property. Manor Architects, on behalf of the new owner (2002), requested and were furnished with a grant application form on 6 May 2003.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/1A/6/16 OS map, County Tyrone sheet 16, with valuation
references, (1833 / 34-c.38)
2 PRONI VAL/1B/33A First valuation, Urney (1834)
3 ‘OS Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of County Tyrone I’ ed Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB, 1990), p.138
4 PRONI VAL/2A/6/16B Revised OS map, County Tyrone sheet 16, with valuation references, (1858 / 59)
5 PRONI VAL/2B/6/39 Second valuation, Urney (1859)

Other references
1 EHS files

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

X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

A single storey, two structural bay, mud walled, direct entry thatched house with whitened walls, windbreak porch and bed outshot to rear.
The condition of the building has deteriorated and it has suffered from vandalism but the basic layout remains unaltered. The existence of the loft and the purlin roof structure adds considerable interest. The position within the former corn mill site and its occupation by the miller enhances the attraction of the house.