15 Main Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

2-storey early Victorian rendered house and former shop with pitched roof, that has group value with the adjacent listed Post office, situated in the middle of Ederney Main Street.

The front elevation faces West and has two entrance doors. The one on the left gives access to the former shop premises and is a double vertically sheeted timber door with a mouth organ overlight above. Either side of this door are two large shop windows with 16 fixed lights. The door to the right gives access to the house and is a replacement sheeted timber door with the upper half containing an cast-glass window. To the first floor, above each door are 6 over 6 timber sliding sash windows. The outside panes being narrower than the centre ones. The walling is roughcast rendered with smooth bands around the openings, to the plinth and at eaves level. To the extreme right are rusticated vertical quoins that match the other end of the group at the left of the adjacent Post Office. Both slopes of the roof are natural Bangor blue slates and the gutters are half round cast iron, supported on iron brackets. There is a single chimney stack constructed from coursed sandstone.

The rear elevation is approached through the coach arch of the Post office and is two bays wide with a late twentieth century 2-storey flat roofed extension to the left. The main wall of the house has a timber sliding sash window to each floor. Although boarded over on the outside the original windows are in place, 6 over 6 on the ground floor and 1 over 1 on the first floor. Behind the house is a substantial yard enclosed to the South with a tall rubble stone wall and divided from the Post Office by a 5 bar gate and what appears to an overgrown hedge. To the East is a stone walled and painted 2-storey outbuilding with various irregular openings and a double pitched corrugated iron roof. It is attached to a similar outbuilding to the rear of the Post office. At right angles to this in the yard is a single storey shed, open towards the house with a mono pitch corrugated iron roof now used as a store.

Historical information

Although this side of Main Street had been developed by the 1830's (at least), the valuation records of 1834 show that this development consised of a mixture of relatively old single to one and a half storey dwellings and public houses (sone thatched), the tallest of which appears to have measured 12.5 ft. Moreover the plots as shown on the c1838 village plan do not appear to a match anything we see today.

A building is shown, much as at present, on the village plan of 1859 and recorded in the comtempory (1858-60) valuation as being leased by a John Monaghan. Monaghan was also the lessor of the neighbouring property to the north the Post Office. Given the similarities between the two buildings it is possible that he may have been responsible for their construction.

The building is currently vacant but was previously used, until recently, as a dwelling house. Prior to that it was a café and prior to that a tobacconists.

References - Primary sources:

1 PRONI VAL/1B/418 First Valuation, Magheraculmoney parish, 1834
2 PRONI VAL/1D/4/2 Valuation plan of Ederney, c1838
3 PRONI VAL/2B/4/13A Second Valuation, Magheraculmoney parish , 1858-60
4 PRONI VAL/2D/4/3 Valuation plan of Ederney , 1959
5 PRONI VAL/12B/27/7A Annual valuation revision book, Ederney ED, 1854-76
6 PRONI VAL/12B/27/7B Annual valuation revision book, Ederney ED, 1877-81
7 PRONI VAL/12B/27/7C Annual valuation revision book, Ederney ED, 1882-89
8 PRONI VAL/12B/27/7D Annual valuation revision book, Ederney ED, 1890-98
9 PRONI VAL/12B/27/7A Annual valuation revision book, Ederney ED, 1899-1913
10 PRONI VAL/12E/134/1 Valuation plan of Ederney, 1904-08
11 PRONI VAL/12B/27/7A Annual valuation revision book, Ederney ED 1914-29
12 PRONI VAL/3G/104/1 Valuation plan of Ederney, 1937 (with annotations up to 1956)

Current owner

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

This small early Victorian former shop and dwelling house has group value with the adjacent listed Post office. The front elevation in particular is well detailed with the original small paned shop windows, narrow double doors, ashlar chimney stack and natural slate roof all contributing to its early Victorian character. It is unusual for commercial buildings of this quality to have survived almost intact and it therefore has rarity value.