Riverside

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two storey / three bay, symmetrical mid 19th C farmhouse with single storey rear return, at end of lane on south side of Castlewellan Road, at Hammy’s Bridge.

Pitched natural slate roof with clay ridges and clay tile skews. Cement rendered chimney to each gable, each with a pair of clay pots. Semicircular cast iron rainwater goods (part missing) on advanced eaves course.

Front elevation is NW facing, and is lined cement rendered. Central bay is narrower than the others and contains the front entrance. A single granite step leads to a late Victorian / Edwardian front door with two fielded bottom panels and a glazed top panel with eye-browed head (orange obscured glazing smashed). Door is hung on an exposed doorframe with granite blocks at base and over is a segmental spoked fanlight.

Ground floor left and right bays each have a single 2/2 (vertically divided) sliding sash window with horns and a dressed granite cill. All are sheeted over with plywood. Each first floor bay has a similar window, all of which are slightly diminished in height and in line with ground floor openings.

Left elevation of house is blank.

Rear elevation of house is abutted to left of centre by the rear return. Remaining back wall of house is smooth cement rendered with advanced eaves as façade. At ground floor to left of return is a pair of 1/1 sliding sashes set within a single opening, and at ground floor to right of return is a similar single window. All windows have dressed granite cills.

At first floor left, over paired window at ground floor, is a 2/2 sliding sash as those on façade. At first floor right there is a small exposed box 1/1 sash window with no cill.

Rear return has a pitched natural slate roof, the ridge of which meets the eaves level of main block. It has a cement rendered chimney (as those to main block) on its gable end, and small cast iron skylight on its left pitch (as viewed from rear).

Return walls are lined cement rendered (over undressed granite). Its rear gable is blank. Its left elevation has a t+g sheeted door to left and a one-piece granite water trough to right. Its right elevation has a pair of small 6/6 sliding exposed box sliding sashes set in a single opening, with no cill.

Setting:
At road is a pair of cement rendered gate piers with pyramidal caps, which support a modern farm gate (the original wrought iron gates c1900 lie in the ditch). Lane to house is lined with mature beech trees and leads past right gable of main block into the rear yard.

To front of house, enclosed by the lane, is a small triangular garden with a small wrought iron pedestrian gate (mid 19th c) hung on one piece granite piers, square based, tapering to octagonal shafts. Rear yard is enclosed to south and west by ruinous single storey outbuildings. All are built in granite rubble with natural slate roofs.

Historical information

No buildings appear on the 1st edition OS map (1834). The lane, house, return, and outbuilding to south are all shown on the 2nd edition OS map (1859) indicating a mid 19th C construction date. The house seems to have been derelict for some time (10-20 years).

Primary Sources:
1. 1st edition OS map Down sheet 42 (1834).
2. 2nd edition OS map Down sheet 42 (1859).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Pleasant mid 19th c formally laid out farmhouse, but not considered sufficiently special to merit statutory protection.