81 Mount Prospect Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single storey, three bay, direct entry hipped roof thatched house with rendered and whitened walls that include a black-painted base.

The building faces south-west just beyond the corner of the road that travels from Lisnaskea to Derrylin about a mile and a half from the latter village. At the front there is a forecourt with concrete box flower planter between it and the house and with a timber fence to the left.

One plain rendered chimney rises above the position of the living room fireplace and there is a similar feature on the left-hand (north-west) gable above the parlour fireplace.

The entrance with a framed and sheeted door with foursquare glazed panel in the upper part is flanked to the left by one, and to the right , by two top-hung timber-framed windows. The sills are of traditional depths.

The right-hand gable has a foursquare steel-framed window lighting the back bedroom.

The house extends to the left (north-west) in flat-roofed form to contain a bedroom and a bathroom. The roof is finished with timber fascias, the rainwater goods are of plastic and the fenestration is modern.

The lean-to kitchen extension at the rear is roofed with corrugated iron, the timber window on the north-east side is modern and rainwater goods are of plastic.

The wall finishes of these buildings match the main house.

Historical information

A building is shown on this site on the OS map of 1834 / 35, but not recorded in the contemporary valuation. The location of the property, beside what was at that point a drive to the nearby Dresternan Castle, (a small country house built by Daniel Winslow c.1740), suggests it originally acted as a gate lodge. Alistair Rowan in ‘North West Ulster’ suggests this also, with a now demolished thatched house further to the southeast acting as another lodge.

On the revised OS map of 1857 the house is shown with a neighbouring property to the northwest side. The 1862 valuation records the name of the occupant as James Heavy, with Henry Winslow as the immediate lessor and the rateable value 15/-. The neighbouring building is recorded as a ‘house and forge’ occupied by a Patrick Dunn. The latter property appears to have been demolished at some point in the mid 1900s.

The house was re-thatched in the early 1990s and again in 2000.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/1A/4/38 OS map, County Fermanagh sheet 38, with valuation
references, (1834 / 35-c.38)
2 PRONI VAL/2A/4/38A Revised OS map, County Fermanagh sheet 38, with valuation references, (1857-c.60)
3 PRONI VAL/2B/4/8C Second valuation, Kinawley (1862)

Secondary sources
1 Rowan, Alistair, ‘North West Ulster’ (London, 1979), p.127
2 Deane, J.A.K., ‘The Gate Lodges of Ulster’ (Belfast, 1994), p.107

Other references
1 EHS Survey of Thatched Buildings, report by Colin Hatrick, 1992
2 EHS Monitoring of Thatched Buildings, report by Michele McFaul, 23 April 1994 [The intention in 1994 was to re-roof the back return (which was then covered in corrugated iron) in more appropriate style.]

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
F. Structural System
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Z. Rarity
X. Local Interest
W. Northern Ireland/International Interest

Evaluation

A single storey, three bay, direct entry hipped roof thatched house with modern extensions. Built pre 1834. Notwithstanding the extension and other modern alterations, including windows, this building retains its special character, and is a rare survivor of a hipped roof thatched building. There is only one other such example in the vicinity, at Geaghum Road.