2 Meredith Place

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Semi-detached two-storey two-bay sandstone house with attic and basement, dated 1842, located on the west side of Drumadd Road, east of Armagh City. The house is rectangular on plan and is the southernmost of the two properties. Single-storey lean-to extension to rear.

Pitched natural slate roof with angled ridge tiles and clipped verges having shared central rendered chimneystack with multiple replacement pots. Projecting stone eaves support profiled plastic gutter. Walling is squared and snecked sandstone, built to courses with cement pointing and dressed tooled quoins to front (east) elevation, rear elevation is random squared sandstone rubble; south gable is cement rendered. Windows are uPVC casements, having stepped red brick surrounds with rendered reveals and set over projecting painted masonry cills.

Principal elevation faces east and has two openings to each floor; the entrance is set to south side having stepped brick surround and patent reveal, and replacement uPVC door. There is a datestone with ‘M.A./1842’ set at the centre of the pair.

South gable is cement rendered and has a window to first floor aligned to east, two attic windows and two windows to basement. The quoin stones are exposed, and at first floor sill level is a stone with finely tooled inscription 'MEREDITH / PLACE'

Rear elevation is abutted by the extension at basement level; there are two windows aligned to north, south (half-landing level) has two windows, the lower window having a replacement concrete lintel, and an infilled window to attic. The extension is cement rendered and of no interest.

North gable is abutted by an identical property (HB15/17/069).

The house is street fronted, and backs onto the east bank of the Ballynahone River. There is an enclosed concrete yard to rear accessed by a pair of modern timber gates on stone gate pier.

Roof: Slate
Walling: Sandstone
Windows: uPVC
RWG: Plastic

Historical information

The historical record for the semi-detached pair of houses at Meredith Place is less than clear, suggesting a history of later subdivision and reconfiguration which is not evident within the building fabric. No.1 is the more historically complete of the two properties, and appears to retain the original layout, mirrored in the adjoining property, which suggests they were built as a pair, rather than as one dwelling. The first edition OS map (c.1835) shows a vacant plot, although there is a rectangular building slightly to the north. Owing to the datestone, which is not applied but integrated with the construction, we can be reasonably certain that the pair were constructed, as indicated, in 1842. The second edition OS map of c.1863 is damaged and the portion covering the townland of Drumadd is obscured, but a series of detailed hand-drawn town plan maps exist for Armagh from 1862. Meredith Place is shown on sheet 9, having substantial outbuildings to the west and south and a bridge across the Ballynahone River to land on the opposite bank. The garden to the north is laid out with a simple rectangular path entered through a gate to the south. The town plan map shows the building captioned ‘Merideth [sic] Place’, indicating what appear to be two opposing sets of entrance steps corresponding to the existing entrances. However, the building is drawn undivided, with main entrance gates to south side only, formal garden to north, and outbuildings informally grouped with internal dividing walls shown. It is unclear for what purpose the building would have been built as one dwelling, with two entrances. By the third edition OS map of c.1900, the returns to the west had been either demolished and replaced with extensions, or joined to the main range; the south range has been extended and is now the site of a separate house which corresponds to the original plan form of the former outbuilding.

The earliest resident recorded is William McKane, listed in the Provincial Directory of 1852. Meredith Place is listed individually at the end of the entry for Drumadd Village in the Griffiths Valuation record (c.1863). Corresponding with the fact that the house is shown as a single property, only one entry is given, the tenant being Benjamin P. Davidson. The lessor was the eponymous Meredith Armstrong who was presumably the original builder of the property, with his initials on the datestone. Armstrong was a surgeon in Armagh and apothecary to the County Gaol, residing in English Street. The Valuations record describes the property as ‘house, offices, yard and garden’, valued at £23 10s and increased to £27 by 1882. In 1877, Rev. Edwin Storr, the minister of the Independent Church on College Street, was also listed as resident at Meredith Place in the Street Directory, suggesting that there were, indeed, two units at this time. Benjamin Davidson was a land and house agent, working for the Northern Fire and Life Insurance Office, and his wife and daughters ran a private ladies’ school from the family home at Meredith Place during the 1880s. By 1889 Davidson had begun subletting the property which had lost £10 in value, falling to £17 and the following year the Valuation Revisions records two properties valued £13 and £4 respectively which were both sublet by Davidson. The discrepancy in value suggests that one half of the property was sublet as house only, without yard, garden and ancillary buildings.

This is upheld by Valuation Revisions in 1890, indicating that the property was split into two sublet portions, one valued at £13 10s comprising house, office, yard and garden, and the other valued at £4 comprising simply a house. In 1895, Davidson was succeeded as the leaseholder by D.P. Walker Martin, an Armagh income tax collector, who appears to have made substantial improvements to the lower valued property which increased in value to £10 and a note in the margin of the valuations for 1895 reads ‘improved and might let for £15’. The note also mentions that ‘these houses lie near Workhouse Fever Hospital tannery, south portion never let’. That the properties were difficult to let is reflected in a quick succession of tenants, with periods of vacancy, from 1891-1899. By 1899 the tenants were David Ferris in plot number 63A (assumed to be No.1, valued down to £12), Edith M. Jarvis in 63B (assumed to be No.2- valued up to £10) After various further changes of occupancy, the value of the properties remained unchanged in 1929 at which time the occupant of 63A is recorded as William McClelland, and the lower valued property as Clara and Sarah Hamilton.

References
Primary Sources
1. PRONI OS/6/2/24/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1834)
2. PRONI OS/6/2/24/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1860)
3. PRONI OS/6/2/24/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1906)
4. PRONI OS/6/2/24/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1906-23)
5. PRONI OS/9/16/2/9 – Town Plan of Armagh City (1862)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/10/4A + C + E + G – Valuation Records (1864-1899)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/10/8A-C – Valuation Records (1899-1923)
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/10/15A – Valuation Records (1924-1929)
9. Belfast and Province of Ulster Directories (1852-1884)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

No.2 Meredith Place is one of a pair of semi-detached two-storey two-bay houses with basements and attics, bearing a datestone of 1842 and located on the west side of Drumadd settlement with Ballynahone River bounding the properties to west. Both houses are well-proportioned with restrained detailing, distiguished by fine squared and snecked sandstone construction which is characteristic of the local urban grain, and contrasted with openings formed in red brick. Although the property is enhanced by the survival of a finely tooled name stone on the south gable, No.2 has suffered extensive loss of historic fabric, including replacement of original windows with uPVC, and internal subdivision to create two flats, thus compromising the overall authenticity of the pair,therfore not worthy of listing. On balance, the houses are a prominent feature along the Drumadd Road, enhancing the historic legibility of the former settlement known as Drumadd village, and are of some local interest, having for a short time accommodated an informal ladies' school.

General comments

Listing Query ref: HB15/LQ112