Cavan House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached three-bay two-storey early nineteenth-century house with attic, located to the north side of Cavan Road. Rectangular-on-plan with single-storey hipped lean-to extension to north-west.

Roof is half-hipped natural slate with blue/black clay ridges over replacement sandstone corbelled eaves; replacement rendered chimneys with clay pots. Walls are roughcast rendered. Windows are square-headed timber-framed 1/1 sliding sashes with uPVC mullions; all have sandstone sills.

Principal elevation faces south and consists of central square-headed entrance containing replacement six-panelled timber door with side and transom lights containing leaded stained glass flanked at each side by single window; three windows at first floor.

West elevation contains single window at each floor left; replacement square-headed double-leaf timber glazed doors at right.

North elevation projects at right; dipartite window at ground floor left is flanked by timber casement window; two windows at first floor; abutted at right by extension containing three casement windows; replacement timber door to east elevation.

East elevation contains single window at each floor right.

Setting

Set in mature gardens; access from Cavan Road at south-east through pair of square roughcast pillars with concrete caps. Enclosed yard at rear accessed through pair of steel gates supported on square sandstone piers with sandstone caps in roughcast walling; rubble boundary wall to west of yard. Single-storey stable block to north is L-shaped on plan; roof is pitched natural slate; walls are rubble to west wing and ruled-and-lined rendered to north wing. Further rendered stable to north-west has corrugated metal roof.

Roof Natural slate
Walling Roughcast
Windows Timber
Rainwater goods Cast-iron

Historical information

The building is shown on the first edition OS map of 1833, with a small extension/porch on the south elevation which is shown to have been removed by the 1950 third edition. It is captioned ‘Cavan House’ on the 1853 OS edition and subsequent editions.

The Townland Valuation records the property as a ‘house and offices’, valued at £18 and occupied by William Dixon Esq.

Lewis notes that ‘…the gentleman’s seats [in the parish] are…Cavan House of W. Dickson Esq’ (p.166). OS Memoirs also allude briefly to the house as “Dickson’s Esquire towards the north west end of [Cavan] townland”. (p.82)

Griffith’s Valuation of 1858 records a ‘house, offices and land’, with dimensions given for the house and porch and two offices. Initially the valuation is £14.10 and this is reduced to £12 at an unknown date. James Wilson Esq is the owner in fee.

Valuation Revisions record that in 1861 the occupier changes to George Alex Rogers, with the building valuation given as £15. Charles Sproule takes ownership in 1869 whilst George Osbourne is the new occupier in 1881. Several changes of ownership follow and the valuation decreases once again to £12 in 1904.

In 1933 the owner is J R Tubman, revised to H F Elliott at an unknown date. The house is valued at £4.10s and comprises a Kitchen, Scullery, P[antry?], two rooms and 6 bedrooms ‘etc’. A plan and dimensions are given and the house is described as being ‘in bad condition’.

The house was bought and restored by the current owner in 1990.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/6/42/1-4 - Ordnance Survey Maps (1833, 1853, 1905-6, 1937-8)
2. PRONI VAL/1/B/628 - Townland Valuation (1820-1840)
3. PRONI VAL/2/A/6/42 – Griffith’s Valuation (1858)
4. PRONI VAL/2/B/630 - Griffith’s Valuation (1858)
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/41/22A-F - Valuation Revisions (1860-1929)
6. PRONI VAL/3/D/7/8T/1 – Valuers’ RV Binder (1933-57)

Secondary Sources

1. Day, A. and P. McWilliams, eds. “OS Memoirs of Ireland, Parishes of County Tyrone I, 1821, 1823, 1833-36, Vol. 5.” Belfast: Institute of Irish Studies, 1990.
2. Lewis, Samuel. “A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, Comprising the Several Counties, Cities, Boroughs, Corporate, Market, and Post Towns, Parishes, and Villages, With Historical and Statistical Descriptions; Embellished with Engravings of the Arms of the Cities, Bishopricks, Corporate Towns, and Boroughs; Of the Seals of the Several Municipal Corporations.” London: S. Lewis & Co., 1837.
3. Information from the current owner..

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A substantial three-bay two-storey early nineteenth-century house with attic, located to the north side of Cavan Road. The building retains its original form and layout and the proportions are typical of a modest Georgian country house in Ireland, shown especially in the fenestration The building has been sympathetically restored but the extensive renewal of detailing and fabric means that it cannot be said to retain its original features and character, further compromised by the inappropriate dash finish.