Rose Cottage

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single storey, five bay, direct entry mud-walled thatched house with plastered and whitened wall finish. The gables and the plinth are of stone and the remainder of the walling is of mud.

The building faces south-west and is positioned a short distance along a narrow lane that proceeds northwards from a secondary road that travels to the east from the Derrylin/ Ballconnell road to terminate at the hamlet of Cloncoohy. The turn off from the main road is about one mile from Ballyconnell. The building is set to the rear of a garden with lawn hedging and walls.

The thatch covering is terminated with skews at the gables and there are two corbelled chimneystacks on the roofline, one over the kitchen hearth and the other the position of the first bedroom in the right hand section of the house. There are two rows of scollops below the ridge.

The timber sheeted entrance door with foursquare glazing in the upper part is protected by a windbreak porch under an extension of the roof covering. There are three vertically sliding windows to the left (south-west) and two to the right of the porch. Sashes are divided into two vertically, sash stops are splayed and sills are of traditional depths.

A similar window in the south-east gable lights the bathroom. Above this there is a plain timber framed window with deep sill giving light to the roofspace that is now sealed off.

At the rear, an entrance in the rear bathroom wall has been sealed off but a timber sheeted door remains in position on the exterior.
A short flat-roofed passage leads from the living room to the kitchen extension. The wall finish is similar to the main house and the roof has an asymmetrical double pitch.

Paired plain-sashed windows on the north-west and north- east sides have splayed sash stops and deep sills. The south-east corner of this unit is splayed.

Historical information

A building matching the present is shown on the OS map of 1834 / 35, but not recorded in the contemporary valuation. It is included in the second valuation of 1862 with Thomas McKenna listed as the occupant, the representatives of William H. [?]Enry the lessors, and the rateable value calculated at £1-10-0.

The southeast bay of the building, now a bedroom and bathroom, was originally a dairy. The house was re-thatched in 1992 by Gerry Agnew using flax, with repairs carried out in 1996 and a further re-thatching in 2001 by Billy Kilpatrick.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/1A/4/41 OS map, County Fermanagh sheet 41, with valuation
references (1834 / 35-c.38)
2 PRONI VAL/2A/4/41 Revised OS map, County Fermanagh sheet 41, with valuation references (1857-c.62)
3 PRONI VAL/2B/4/9 Second valuation, Tomregan (1862)

Secondary sources
1 EHS Monitoring of Thatched Buildings, report by Michele McFaul to EHS, 26 April 1994

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
H+. Alterations enhancing the building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

A single-storey, five bay, direct entry mud-walled thatched house with plastered and whitened wall finish.

The layout remains unaltered and care has been taken to retain the style of the roof, the vertically sliding windows and internal detailing including the fireplace.

This house is one of an interesting group of listed thatched buildings that survive in the Derrylin area all of which exhibit slightly contrasting features