45 Gardrum Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A detached 1½ storey stone-built vernacular dwelling of possible pre-1830 construction, located north of the Gardrum Road in the townland of Rahallan, about. The building is rectangular in plan with gabled ends with the front elevation facing southwards on to the roadside. To the immediate west are the reamains of a collapsed outbuilding.

A three-bay lobby-entry structure, with crudely formed roughly semi-circular fanlight-like window above entrance door to central bay, separated from door opening by deep masonry band to door head. Roof is a simple double-pitch with two rectangular chimneystacks, sand/cement rendered. Walls are lime-washed coursed stone walls, with dressed stone quoins evident. Windows to front and gable elevations are replacement timber-framed un-weighted casements with existing stone sills. Rear elevation windows are metal casement.

Roof: corrugated asbestos sheet
Walling: coursed random rubble, dressed stone quoins, lime-washed
Windows: timber & metal
RWG: cast iron ½ round

Setting:
The house is set in a rural location, on a roadside at edge of farmland to north of Gardrum Road, about 6.7km east of Belcoo. Road lined with mature hedges and trees. River at edge of plot to west.

Historical information

A dwelling of seemingly the same size, plan and orientation as the present is shown on this site on the OS map of 1834, along with an outbuilding set at a right angle to its immediate west and a large orchard to the north and east. The same arrangement appears on the revised OS map of 1856 OS map, although the former orchard is shown simply as a field.

The second valuation of c.1860 describes the building as a ‘herd’s house’ rated at a lowly 5/-, and in the hands of William Wilson, who lived at the large two-storey farmhouse about 200m directly west (present no.49 Gardrum Rd). In 1882 the rateable value of the house was increased to £1-10-0 and an occupant is recorded for the first time - Jason Hassard. Jason was undoubtedly a member of the locally prominent Hassard family who had owned the estate of Gardenhill (east of Boho Rd, about 2km NE of Belcoo, 5km W of this property) from at least the late 17th century until around 1870, and it is possible that he was the son of its final Hassard owner, Alexander Jason Hassard (1837-74). The rise in the rateable value of the house, plus the fact that its tenant appears to have been of relatively high social status, (in name if not perhaps in resources), suggests that the building was refurbished at this time. The window frames certainly look to be of this era.

Jason Hassard vacated the house in or just prior to 1888, and after some years when it appears to have been vacant, a George Montgomery is noted as the tenant in 1896. The following year it is recorded as vacant once again, and thereafter until at least 1930 it is listed under the name of George Wilson, (the successor to William Wilson of no.49), although he clearly did not occupy the building and it must have been rented out.

The property appears to have been vacated some time before 2009, possibly in the 1980s or early 1990s.

Townland - The house is located within the townland of Rahallan (Cleenish Parish, Barony of Clanawley) which is thought to translate as either ‘Sallan’s rath or fort’, or the ‘rath of the salt’ or ‘beautiful fort’. Presumably the name alludes to the rath about 360m from the house, on the other side of Gardrum Road.

References - Primary sources
1 OS maps, Co. Fermanagh sheet 26, 1834, 1856, 1906
2 Second valuation (printed version), c.1860 [First valuation and MS version of the second valuation will be consulted when PRONI reopens. It is highly unlikely that a house of this size would have been recorded in the first valuation.]
3 PRONI VAL12B/26/32A-E Valuation books (1864-1929)

Secondary sources
4 HERoNI F-058 Gardenhill - Historic Parks and Gardens file relating to Gardenhill

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Single-storey plus attic lobby-entry vernacular dwelling of possible pre-1830 construction, compromised by the loss of the original roof structure and much of the original interior detailing.