2 Harker's Hill

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Small, single-storey vernacular house, with lime washed brick frontage and double-pitched slated roof, one of a short canted row of four similar but non-identical dwellings, all of which appear to be largely of 1871, but with this dwelling, and its immediate neighbour to the west, possibly containing the fabric of a pre-1835 structure. The row, which may have been constructed to house workers employed in a small near by mill, is set at the end of a short country lane and shares a communal ‘yard’ with a contemporary -and generally similar- pair of ‘semi-detached’ dwellings to the north [HB15/04/027E & F]. The lane leading to the houses is located to the east of Cornascriebe Road, roughly 1.4km west of Laurelvale, 3.8km west of Tandragee.

This house is to the west of centre of the block and is rectangular in plan. The front (north) wall is constructed in clay brick finished with lime wash, and has a painted ‘plinth’. The rear wall is finished with lined cement render, whilst the roof is double pitched, covered with natural slate and has a small fixed skylight to the south side. Eaves are clipped without overhangs and rainwater goods have been replaced in uPVC. Chimneystacks rise on either side of the ridgeline, both constructed in brick and rendered, with corbelled caps.

The front elevation is asymmetrical. To the right side there is a flat-headed door opening with a plain timber sheeted door. To the left there is a flat-headed window opening with a 2/2 timber sash frame; the window sill is painted stone.

To either side of the rear southern façade there is a flat-headed window opening; that to the right has a 6/6 sash frame while that to the left is much smaller and has a single light fixed frame.

Historical information

A relatively long rectangular structure which appears to match the size and orientation of the western end of the row to which this property belongs, is shown on the OS maps of 1835 and 1860, with a shorter building to the north roughly on the site of the present ‘semi-detached’ block, but orientated slightly differently. None of these buildings are recorded in the first valuation of November 1836. In the second valuation of 1862 two dwellings are listed as present, occupied by a John Gibson and Matthew Cattleton respectively, however, the valuers do not make it clear whether these houses where located in each of the separate structures, or whether both were jointly contained within either one of them.

In 1871 six dwellings are recorded by the valuers. Unfortunately (once again) we are not told whether all of these were new builds or divisions of existing properties, but judging from the evidence presented by the earlier maps and by the appearance of the present dwellings, it is likely that the block to the north (containing the ‘semis’- nos.5-6) was built afresh, along with the eastern half of the southern row (containing nos.3-4). The western half of the row (nos.1-2) may also have been built anew, as the use of materials appears much the same as the rest of the structures, however, the fact that it is set at a different angle than the eastern half, as well as the sizes of the window openings, suggests that it may, either in part or in whole, represent the survival of the southern building on the 1835 and 1860 maps.

The houses themselves were developed by Charles Moneypenny, who lived to the south-west, in the present no.14 Cornascriebe Road. They are said locally to have originally housed workers employed in a mill to the rear of this house, the remains of which are still extant. The houses later (c.1903) came into the possession of the Sintons, another prominent mill-owning family, but the mill itself appears to have ceased working by this time, and the dwellings themselves are simply noted as ‘cottier houses’ by the valuers in 1904.

The lease of the whole group was acquired by the present owner’s ancestor, c.1930 and the freehold c.1965. All of the properties appear to have been last occupied as private dwellings in the mid to later 1960s.

This particular house (no.2) is recorded as occupied by Josephine McMurray from 1871 to 1887, and then by Andrew Woods. In 1904 the property is listed by the valuers as a ‘workshop’, with an entry of 1917 (when the property came into the hands of Joseph Woods) stating that it ‘is now part of J [the reference for the neighbouring house to the east]’; the recess for the doorway connecting the pair is still visible [see HB15/04/027C]. The properties remained connected until c.1933 when Thomas Murray is recorded as the occupant of this building only. He was followed by George Dougan in 1936 and Arthur Dynes in 1966, but by 1970 both this house and the other five dwellings within the group had been vacated, and have remained so ever since.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL1A/2/13 OS map, County Armagh sheet 13, with valuation
references, 1835(-c.38)
2 PRONI VAL1B/218 First valuation, Kilmore parish, 1836
3 PRONI VAL2A/2/13B OS map, County Armagh sheet 13, with valuation references, 1860(-c.63)
2 PRONI VAL2B/2/33 Second valuation, Kilmore parish, 1862-63
4 PRONI VAL12B/11/4A Annual valuation revision book, Mullahead ED, 1863-76
5 PRONI VAL12B/11/4B Annual valuation revision book, Mullahead ED, 1876-83
6 PRONI VAL12B/11/4C Annual valuation revision book, Mullahead ED, 1883-97
7 PRONI VAL12B/11/4D Annual valuation revision book, Mullahead ED, 1897-1909
8 PRONI VAL/12A/2/48 Valuers’ office notebook, Tandragee RD, 1904
9 PRONI OS6/2/13/3 OS map, County Armagh sheet 13, 1905-6
10 PRONI VAL12B/11/4E Annual valuation revision book, Mullahead ED, 1909-21
11 PRONI VAL12B/11/4F Annual valuation revision book, Mullahead ED, 1921-29
12 PRONI VAL12F/2/9/1 Annual valuation revision book, Laurelvale ED, 1930-35
13 PRONI VAL3B/2/12 First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland, Laurelvale ED, 1935
14 PRONI VAL3C/2/18 First General Revaluation of Northern Ireland, Laurelvale ED, 1936-57
15 PRONI VAL4B/2/30 Second General Revaluation of Northern Ireland, Laurelvale ED, 1957-72

Secondary sources
1 Information supplied by owner, November 2009

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

This house is one of a group of six dwellings of 1871 ( originally mill workers’ houses) which have retained their original urban vernacular appearance and layout, and a largely untouched rural setting. This type of group is becoming increasingly rare. The fact that the houses face each other across a lane / communal yard is unusual in a rural setting and adds considerable interest. Detailing and layout is largely intact both externally and internally