52 Clonmakate Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single-storey, mud-walled building comprising two dwellings. Built around 1834, the building is located on the northern end of Clonmakate Road, a short distance from the junction with Maghery Road.
The main roof and entrance porch are corrugated metal, with rendered masonry chimneys and metal rainwater goods. It was not possible to ascertain whether the main roof was thatched underneath. The external finish is dash, with smooth render to the architraves, window surrounds, porch corners and quoins at principal corners of the building. Square-headed window openings with stone lintels are currently boarded up but have mostly two-over-two timber sash windows and some replacement Crittal metal windows.

Roof Corrugated Metal
Walling Mudwalled construction with dash finish
Windows Timber sliding sash and Crittal Metal
Rainwater goods Metal

Historical information

A structure matching the plan and location of the present is shown for the first time on the revised OS map 1859. As there is no evidence to indicate demolition / rebuilding after this date, we can assume that the building we see today is that which was standing in 1859, and that it was therefore constructed sometime after 1834 (when the original edition of the OS map for this area was produced.)

In the 1862 valuation, the property is noted as a house with ‘office’ (i.e. outbuilding) leased by John Kirkland from Edward Stanley and rated at a fairly modest £1-15-0. Joseph Todd took over the tenancy in or just prior to 1866, and in the 1901 census he is recorded as a 60yr-old widower farmer living here with his unmarried 22yr-old daughter, Martha Jane, with the house itself noted as a ‘3rd class’ mud or timber walled thatched dwelling with three windows in front and containing three rooms.

Mr. Todd appears to have died c.1910 with Martha J. Woods (presumably the abovementioned Martha Jane – now married) listed as the occupant in 1914. Mrs Woods died in 1932, and the property appears to have passed to her husband, Thomas, who seems to have continued to live here until at least 1948. Notices in the ‘Portadown News’ indicate that by 1979 the house was in the possession of Samuel Didgeons. He advertised it for sale in 1981, with the sale advert describing the building as having ‘2 bedrooms, kitchen [and] scullery’.

References – Primary sources
1 OS map county series, Armagh sheet 5 - 1834-35, 1859, 1905-06; IG sheet 162-13 – 1954, 1964, 1980
2 PRONI VAL2B/2/21A Second valuation, Tartaraghan parish – 1862
3 PRONI VAL12B/14/15A, C-E Annual valuation revision books, Tartaraghan ED – 1864-1920
4 Census of Ireland – 1901, 1911 [Online at www.census.nationalarchives.ie]
5 ‘Portadown News’ – 23 January 1932, p.1; 17 July 1948, p.2; 4 May 1979, p.31

Evaluation

A mud wall house and ‘office’ built between 1834 and 1859. Some of the mud walls are missing render at both gables. The three-room floor plan is largely intact with some minor sub-division (G07, G04). A 20th century flat roof extension provides rear accesses to both dwelling and ‘office’.
The interior is sparse and retains little architectural detail. While the form of construction is relatively rare the building itself is not remarkable,and as such is an RO.