126 Portadown Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single-storey, gable-ended, vernacular building of elongated layout orientated on a north-south axis, located 5.5 Km NE from Armagh City on the NW side of the main road between Portadown and Armagh.

This building demonstrates the pattern of a ‘long house’ farmstead with a house on the northern end and what appears to be a cowshed at the southern end. The building steps down, following a fall in the topography, to terminate at two heavily buttressed corners on the north gable. These brick and render-faced buttresses have a pronounced batter. A small concrete blockwork kitchen extension is attached to the rear northwest corner and built into one of the buttresses. The wall construction is likely rubble stone. The current roof covering is asbestos sheet. There is evidence of blockwork walling to reduce the width of an opening in the southern cowshed.

The elevations are sand-cement render with modern pebbledash to the porch. The front elevation has three windows and a porch door with painted modern cement surrounds and two full height unadorned openings to the cowshed. The replacement windows are single-glazed wooden frame, one pane over one with top opening casement. The rainwater goods are half round upvc. The single chimney stack is rendered brick.

Setting
Located on NW side of Portadown Road, the front entrance faces east. The site bounds the A3 to the SE, an access lane to the east and the gardens of two more recent dwellings to the south and west. What appear to be foundations are located in the garden to the NW. The front and rear gardens are bounded by high hedges and while the front garden is open to the lane, the rear garden has a five bar field gate.

Materials:
Walls: Rubble stone with Render/pebbledash finish
Roof: Asbestos sheet
Windows: timber single-glazed top casement
RWGs: upvc

Historical information

A building matching the current is shown on this site on the OS map of 1835. A comparison between the former and John Rocque’s county map of 1760 shows that this stretch of today’s Armagh - Portadown Road, (roughly corresponding to the section between the junctions of the present Drumanmore Road in the west and Drumilly Road in the east), did not exist at that point, and no buildings are marked in this general vicinity. This suggests that the present dwelling may have been constructed post-1760 but given the scale and accuracy of the earlier map we cannot be certain.

The property is not recorded in the first valuation of Loughgall parish carried out in 1837. In the second valuation of c.1862 (by which time Mullanasilla townland had become part of the new civil parish of Kildarton), the occupant is noted as Ogle Hutchinson, who was leasing the ‘house, office and land’ from the Molyneaux / Castle Dillon estate, with the dwelling itself rated at a modest £1-15-0. By 1879 the property had transferred to George Hutchinson. In 1895 James Mallin is named as the tenant, followed by Johnston Irwin in 1899. In the 1901 census, Mr. Irwin, a 34yr-old farmer, is noted as living here with his wife, Sarah, and their three infant children, with the house recorded as a ‘3rd class’ thatched dwelling with five rooms in use.

Johnston Irwin acquired the freehold to the property in 1911 and, according to the valuation books, was still residing here in 1930. At some point between c.1954 and 1970 the house became the local post office, with map evidence suggesting it relinquished this role prior to 1984.

The neighbouring telephone kiosk appears to have been installed here post-1970 (see HB15/03/049).

TOWNLAND: Mullanasilla - Ir. Mullach na Saileach ‘summit of the sallows’.

This immediate vicinity has the name ‘Woodview’. Probably a reference to extensive the woodland at nearby Castle Dillon, the name appears to have been applied to the part pre-1835 house on the southeast side of the road, (no.137 Portadown Rd, see HB15/03/015), by at least 1860. By the early 1900s, the area was also being referred to as ‘Woodview Post Office’. The post office itself had been located in 136 Portadown Rd (directly opposite ‘Woodview’ House) from before 1891, transferring just under 1km northeast to 149 Mullanasilla Rd sometime between 1905 and 1947, and then to no.126 Portadown Rd at some point between 1947 and 1970.

Reference – Primary sources
1 Map of County Armagh by John Rocque – 1760
2 OS map, 6in County Series, Co. Armagh sheet 12 - 1835, 1860, 1905, 1947; IG sheet 218 (218-4) – 1970, 1984
3 PRONI VAL1B/226A-B First valuation, Loughgall parish – 1837
4 ‘Armagh Guardian’ - 17 February 1860, p.3
5 PRONI VAL2B/2/24B Second valuation, Kildarton parish – c.1862
6 PRONI Val12B/14/2A-E Annual valuation revision books, Hockley ED – 1864-1929
7 ‘Belfast Telegraph’ – 27 March 1891, p.1
8 Census of Ireland – 1901, 1911 online http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie

Secondary sources
9 PlacenamesNI website - https://www.placenamesni.org/resultdetails.php?entry=10333

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

An elongated single-storey vernacular building demonstrating the pattern of a ‘long house’ farmstead with the house to the north and a cowshed to the south, located 5.5 Km NE from Armagh City on the NW side of the main road between Portadown and Armagh. Much of the exterior finishes have been replaced, such as the wall finishes, windows and roof covering and the rainwater goods have been replaced with uPVC.
There is therefore insufficient original historic character extant to meet the criteria for listing, and there is also a planning approval which appears to have been enacted for a replacement dwelling.