Former lock keeper's house

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

An extensively refurbished one-storey/ three-bay former lock keeper's house on the Ulster Canal (of which there is no trace hereabouts). Aligned NW-SE with canted by to SW facade (towards canal).

Hipped artificial slate roof to main block and projecting bay, with boxed eaves and plastic ogee gutters. Modern brick chimney to ridge of projecting bay. All walls are of squared limestone rubble, irregularly laid over a chamfered base course and with stepped finely-dressed quoins. The surfaces are covered with a thin film of cement wash. All window openings have top-hung 1/1 modern timber casements and concrete cills.

The principal elevation faces SW towards the canal and road. It is symmetrical, with a hipped projecting central bay. There is a window to the left and right-hand blocks. The bay has a window to each of its three front faces and a modern six-panel timber door to its right cheek.

The left gable is blank. A central heating flue rises to just below eaves level at right.

The rear (NE) elevation is completely abutted to left and centre by a modern one-storey kitchen addition, with flat roof and pebbledashed walls; the latter is of no interest. The exposed right-hand bay of the main block has a window; some of the pebbledash continues across this face from the extension.

The right gable is blank.

Historical information

The Ulster Canal was constructed between Charlemont (Co Armagh) and Wattle Bridge (Co Fermanagh) between 1825 and 1842. The consulting engineer was William Cubitt and the principal contractor William Dargan (better known for his railways). This particular canal section is not depicted in the 1834 OS 6" map, and must therefore date to later in the same decade. The canal was closed in 1931.

The 1983 HMBB survey card and photograph notes that the roof was of natural slate at that time, the eaves boxed and bracketed, the windows 2/4 sliding sashes (paired to the projecting bay, and their cills of stone; there were no gutters.

Primary sources:
1. OS 6" map, 1st edition (1834), Co Fermanagh sheet 43 (PRONI OS 6/4/43/1).
2. 1983 HMBB survey card and photograph.

Secondary sources:
1. W.A. McCutcheon, The Industrial Archaeology of Northern Ireland (Belfast, 1980).
2. R. Delany, Ireland's Inland Waterways (Belfast, 1986).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Of some historical interest, but too compromised architecturally to now make it of special merit.