Benagh House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

One and a half storey/three bay house with two storey rear return, up lane on east side of Benagh Road.

Pitched natural slate roof, diminishing in courses. Cast iron skylight in rear slope, raised rendered brick verges and a roughcast rendered chimney on each gable. No rainwater goods. Walls are unpainted cement roughcast with smooth base course and projecting eaves, and all openings have smooth cement rendered surrounds and painted granite cills.

Principle façade faces west and is symmetrical. Front entrance is in middle. Modern four panelled painted timber door with flanking two-paned, side lights with cills. Over is a five paned fanlight set within a segmental headed opening. Left and right bays each have a large two paned fixed stained timber window with top hung transom over.

Left gable is blank to ground floor. Two modern windows above, each with a pair of fixed panes with top hung transom.

Rear elevation is abutted at centre by a return. Remaining wall to ground floor right has a pair of modern 1/1 top hung casement windows set in a single opening. Wall to left of return is identical.

Return roof is as main roof and tied into it, with lower ridge and eaves. It has a cast iron skylight on its right pitch and a tall rendered chimney on its rear gable. Semicircular plastic rainwater goods. Walls and openings as main block. The rear gable is abutted to right by a range of outhouses (see later). Remaining wall is blank as is right cheek. Left cheek has a modern half-glazed door and to its right is a modern top-hung casement window (as façade).

The right gable of the main block is blank to ground floor with two modern 2/2 casement windows in gable.

Outbuildings

Outbuildings form a continuous south-facing range, in four distinct sections, each with separate roofs. All have unpainted, wetdashed walls and no rainwater goods. Majority of openings are on south facing elevations. First outbuilding is two bayed, each with a byre served by a sheeted timber door. Second has a sheeted double leaf door. Third has a sheeted half door on left and a sheeted door to right, with two steel casement windows between. Fourth is a two bay store with two small vents, a sheeted half door and a sliding door. There is a steel casement window in the end gable. The right cheek is blank but for a small four paned (damaged) window to right and a small chicken flap to centre.

Hand pump to rear left of house has a ‘flag’ logo. Leading from around the house to front gardens and fields are a number of unusually ornate wrought iron gates. Small orchard to SW of house and small front garden and beech lined former drive to west. To SE are two single storey outbuildings with pitched natural slate roofs and whitewashed walls, with Dutch barn beyond, enclosing a yard. Pair of flat iron gates to rear lane on plain posts.

In field to NE of house is an outside toilet (dry closet). Its shallow pitched natural slate roof is repaired with asbestos slates to right pitch and has a truncated brick chimney to east gable (no trace of which can be found internally). Walls are ochre washed with slightly projecting eaves. Door in west gable is painted sheeted timber with ventilation gap at top. Rear gable has a large rectangular opening at ground floor from which the latrine waste could be removed. Internally there is a niche on each side wall (one may have been a window) and a boxed timber seat with two circular openings below which the dry latrine buckets were placed.

Historical information

A building with this ground plan (including rear returns and abutting range of outbuildings) is shown here on the 1834 OS map. Landscaped grounds are shown to the front of the house. The 1835 valuation notes its owner as David Moore. ‘David Moore, farmer’ is listed at Benagh in Bradshaw’s Directory, although it is uncertain if it was at this house. The 1863 valuation records the owner as Stephen Thompson, and the complex is described as “very neat respectable cottage and very neat grounds”.

Primary Sources:
1. OS 6" map, 1st edition (1834) Co Down sheet 55 (PRONI OS/6/3/55/1)
2. PRONI- VAL 1B/390A, p.20 (first valuation).
3. PRONI- VAL 2B/3/81C, p.43 (second valuation).
4. PRONI- T. Bradshaw, ‘General Directory of Newry, Armagh and the towns of…..Kilkeel….’ (Newry 1820). P.49.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Z. Rarity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

The very attractive panelled shutters and doors and the extremely delicate internal plasterwork are unusual in a house of this very modest scale, and give it an early 19th century date. The formalised plan is of interest and so too is the double latrine in the back garden.

Although the relatively recent external alterations have altered its character, it retains enough features of quality to make it of special architectural or historic interest.