Railview House,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached three-bay two-storey house, built c.1870, located to the south side of Rakeeran Road. Rectangular-on-plan with single-storey lean-to boiler house to south.

Roof is pitched natural slate with blue/black clay ridge tiles; replacement brick chimneys. Walls are ruled-and-lined-rendered with flush sandstone quoins over stepped plinth; west elevation is roughcast. Windows are timber-framed 2/2 sliding sashes; replacement uPVC casements to west elevation with replacement concrete sills to ground floor; painted sandstone sills elsewhere.

Principal elevation faces east and consists of central square-headed entrance opening containing replacement timber panelled door with transom light and flanked by 1/1 sliding sash sidelights, accessed by stone steps; window to left and right; three windows at first floor.

South gable contains small window to attic; abutted at ground floor by smooth rendered boiler house containing vertically-sheeted timber door to west.

West elevation consists of central replacement uPVC door flanked left and right by single window; three windows at first floor (that to centre diminished in size); two rooflights to pitch.

North gable contains single window at ground floor; replacement uPVC window at first floor.

Setting

House is set within farmyard with range of outbuildings to west; each has natural slate roof and coursed rubble lime-rendered walling with fieldstone quoins. To north-west, L-shaped single-storey stable block, dated 1871, with segmental-headed carriage-arches to south elevation. Attached at south is two-storey stable block with lean-to store accessed at first floor by sandstone steps; timber-framed openings have red brick voussoirs. Pair of wrought-iron gates supported by sandstone pillars within rubble walling provide access to garden at north of house. Principal access from road through pair of wrought-iron gates supported on octagonal rendered piers; site bounded to road at north by timber fence; farmyard accessed through farm gates in roughcast walling in alcoved entrance.

Roof Natural slate
Walling render
Windows timber & uPVC
RWG uPVC

Historical information

The house is first shown on the third edition OS map of 1905-6, captioned ‘Railview House’. However buildings are shown on the site from the first edition of 1833 and some of these appear to have survived. An outbuilding to the north of the plot, next to the road, bears a datestone of 1871; stylistically, it would appear that the house dates from the same period, although later amendments have altered the appearance of the rear elevation, including enlargement and replacement of windows.

Griffith’s Valuation records a ‘house, offices and land’, valued at £3, and occupied by James Warnock. In the Valuation Revisions the valuation is £6.10s, and this is revised to £8.10s in 1863 due to ‘new offices’ being built. The occupier is revised to Andrew Lindrum in 1871, at which date ‘gate lodge’ is added to the property description, and the valuation increases to £17.5s. The designation ‘gate lodge’ appears to describe the outbuilding to the north of the plot which is indeed next to the gate entrance into the property. However, it is unusual to refer to a building of this type as a gate lodge.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/6/50/1-4 - Ordnance Survey Maps (1833, 1853, 1905-6, 1938)
2. PRONI VAL/2/A/6/50 – Griffith’s Valuation Map (1858)
3. PRONI VAL/2/B/6/31B - Griffith’s Valuation (1858)
4. PRONI VAL/12/B/41/43A-F - Valuation Revisions (1860-1923)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A detached three-bay two-storey house, built c.1870, located to the south side of Rakeeran Road. The house, although modernised, to include replacement windows and chimneys, retains its original form and many details internally. The stables to the rear are built with rubble construction and lime-rendered and remain largely intact, retaining original openings. However, the whole is relatively late and of a common type and the house has been compromised by modern alterations and elements.