House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A symmetrical two storey / three bay house aligned SW-NE on a lane to the N of Dernawilt Road.

Pitched natural slate roof with a polychrome brick chimney at party wall between each bay. A slightly advanced eaves course supports half-round cast-iron rainwater goods. Walls are harled. All windows are exposed box sliding sashes with horns and stone cills.

Principal elevation faces SE. To centre is a timber-sheeted door with four-paned sidelights and a three-part transom over. There is a decorative timber console bracket at either side of door head. Right and left bays each have a 2/2 (horizontally divided) window. Aligned above ground floor openings are three 6/3 windows, diminished in height.

Left gable has a 6/6 window to first floor centre.

Rear elevation has a 2/2 (horizontally divided) window to ground floor at both left and right bays. Central bay has a t+g-sheeted door to left and a window to each floor to right. That to ground floor is 6/6; that to first floor is 1/1. Above the door is a datestone reading ‘H.B. 1870’ (Henry Blakely – a relative of the present occupant).

Right gable is abutted to left by a single storey outbuilding. The exposed section is blank. The outbuilding is detailed as house with a monopitched corrugated metal roof. NE face and left cheek each have a timber top-hung casement window set at centre. Right cheek has a t+g-sheeted door.

Setting:
The house occupies an elevated and maturely planted site and is accessed by a long lane from the road.

Historical information

A house is shown here from the 1834 OS 6” map onwards. However, its low rateable value on both the first and second valuation books suggests a one-storey house. The datestone on the present house suggests that it was erected (or the earlier building enlarged) in 1870, although its rateable valuation only increases (from 15s.0d to £3.10s.0d) in 1882.

Primary sources

1. OS maps, 1st edition, 1834, Co Fermanagh 35.
2. OS maps, 2nd edition, 1859 Co Fermanagh 35.
3. Published second valuation book, Co Fermanagh, Clones Union, p.59 (1862; compiled 1860).
4. OS maps, 3rd edition, 1906-07 Co Fermanagh 35.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This interesting vernacular house occupies a pleasant and secluded elevated site overlooking but well concealed from the road. The original hearth-lobby plan-form is intact and the house has had few alterations over the years, thus retaining much of its original character throughout.