Cottage

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single-storey (+attic) / three bay, hearth-lobby vernacular house aligned SW-NE at the N of Drumlone Townland.

Half-hipped natural slate roof (repaired with some fibre cement slates) with a brown brick chimney to party wall between each bay. Half-round metal rainwater goods. Walls are roughcast with stepped stucco quoins. Windows are 8/8 sliding sashes in narrow painted cement rendered-reveals with painted stone cills.

Principal elevation faces SE and has four equally spaced openings. Left and right bays each have a window. Central bay has a window to left and a timber door to right.

Left gable is abutted by a lower outbuilding. The exposed section has a 1/1 sliding sash window to attic level, set at right (top-right corner has been cut to fit with slope of roof). The outbuilding has a pitched corrugated metal roof. It is roughcast to front and rubble stone to rear. SE elevation is blank. Left gable has a 2x2 metal-framed top-hung casement window. Rear elevation has a t+g sheeted door to either end (that to left end is larger).

Rear elevation is abutted by a single-storey addition to right of centre (see later). Left bay has a 2/2 (horizontally divided) window to centre. Central bay has a similar window (set to immediate left of addition) to ground floor and a 1/1 sliding sash to left and right at attic level. Exposed section of right bay has the remains of a 2x2 fixed pane window (to immediate right of addition). Addition is detailed as house with a monopitched corrugated asbestos roof. Rear face has a window opening (sheeted with corrugated metal). Left cheek has a t+g sheeted door; right cheek is blank.

Right gable has two sash windows.

Setting:
The house is set facing the road with a small garden to front (enclosed by a low hedge). To rear is a farmyard accessed to right by a pair of cast-iron gates supported on square-in-section cement rendered gate piers with pyramidal coping. .

Historical information

A building is shown at this location on the 1834 OS 6" map. It is not valued in the 1830s Valuation book, indicating a one-storey vernacular structure. In 1862, its valuation was £2.10s.0d and this remains unchanged through to the 1920s. Whilst this valuation low for such a substantial structure, there is no evidence to suppose that this building did not take on its present form in the mid 19th century (unfortunately the manuscript version of the second Valuation book gives no details of its dimensions, so one cannot be absolutely certain).

Primary sources:
1. OS 6" map, 1st edition (1834), Co Fermanagh sheet 39 (PRONI OS 6/4/39/1).
2. OS 6" map, 2nd edition (1857), Co Fermanagh sheet 39 (PRONI OS 6/4/39/2).
3. Second Valuation book, Galloon Parish, Clones Union, p.155

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A well proportioned hearth-lobby vernacular house, which retains a good amount of external character. This building type is becoming increasingly rare.