6 Springtown Road,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Single storey, three structural bay, lobby entry, thatched vernacular house, with attached barn abutting southwest gable. Barn smaller in width and height than main building and at a slight angle to it. Corrugated metal roof. Walls of house smooth rendered and painted white. Walls of barn rendered by successive layers of whitewash and reveal trace of stone construction behind. Unrendered brick entrance porch projection with flat roof in centre of façade. Sheeted entrance door with square window. Single window lighting each bay on each side of house. Window to kitchen on front (north west) elevation slightly enlarged to house a metal casement window. Other windows all two pane sliding sash.

Stone cills are painted and the same colour is carried around the windows on an unadorned render architrave. Timber lintels to the rear south west elevation are exposed, unpainted and in need of replacement. Single chimney on ridge in line with side of entrance door in modern red brick with concrete flaunching onto thatch. End gables of building carried up side of thatch. Tops exposed and weathered. Deep build up of thatch at eaves approximately 500mm. Crisscross hazel ligger form a stitching pattern at eaves level on thatch with top and bottom line. No pattern at ridge. Roof currently scallop thatched with wheat straw. Flush painted timber door into barn immediately adjacent to front façade of house. Sheugh along rear of house separating building from the nearby road three metres approximately above its floor level. 450mm wide base of sheugh cemented behind house, muddy behind barn.

Steep entrance road to farmyard drops along northeast gable of house. Small single pane window lights attic.

The house is situated at a curve in the Springtown Road. It is located below it and facing away from it. There are two entrances from the road. The steep one described above forms the north eastern boundary and carries on down the hill to the farm beyond. A second entrance carrying on from the line of the road as it reaches the corner drops more gently to the farmyard. This goes between the house barn and a lower row of metal roofed barns. An out building perpendicular to the house forms one side of a simple courtyard directly in front of the building.

Historical information

A building which appears to match the present is shown on the OS map of 1834, but not recorded in the contemporary valuation. It property is noted in the second valuation of 1858, with the then occupant, Owen Donnelly, leasing the house from Francis Smith. The rateable value is recorded as a modest 15/-.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/1A/6/59 OS map, County Tyrone sheet 59, with valuation
references, (1833-c.38)
2 PRONI VAL/1B/62A-K First valuation, Clogher (c.1833)
3 PRONI VAL/2A/6/59B Revised OS map, County Tyrone sheet 59, with valuation references, (1858)
4 PRONI VAL/2B/6/2E Second valuation, Clogher (1858)

Owners Father bought farm in 1930’s. Before 1930’s Hearts lived in house, Donnelly’s before that. Landlord :Breckenridge. Owner estimates building to be 200 years old. Building indicated on the first edition Ordnance Survey of 1834. Current house and barn opposite at an angle are indicated. Other buildings are not. It was listed in 1991 and thatched by the owner in wheat straw in 1993.

References- Primary sources
Ordnance Survey First Edition Co. Tyrone Sheet 59 1834
Ordnance Survey Second Edition Co. Tyrone Sheet 59 1858
EHS records

Secondary sources
Current owner.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

A well preserved, three structural bay, lobby entry thatched building with historic roof structure, and plan. Of interest for its scarcity, attractiveness, and importance as an example of a vernacular type.