30 Church Square

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two-storey (+ attic) / three-bay house at S end of E side of Church Square, facing junction with Caddell’s Lane.

Pitched artificial slate roof with over hanging boxed eaves and plain barges. Coped cement rendered chimney to each gable. Two modern 'Velux' lights to front pitch and one to rear. Walls are wet dashed with painted smooth base course.

Front elevation has a single storey porch to middle bay. Its walls are dashed as main block, with chamfered base course. Its corners are embellished with painted stucco pilasters which support a moulded entablature with plain blocking course around a flat roof. Its front face has a modern 1/1 top-hung timber window with painted granite cill; all windows to rest of house are identical unless otherwise stated. Its left cheek contains a modern door with semicircular fanlight. Its right cheek has a window with semicircular head.

Left and right bays of main block each have a large window to each floor. Middle opening on first floor has a pair of modern French windows with plain rectangular transom leading on to porch roof.

Left gable is blank and dashed.

Right gable is dashed as façade with a single window to right at ground and first floor. Small windows to right and left at attic, the heads of which slope in line with the barge boards. This elevation continues right with the left cheek of the rear return fronting Caddells Lane (see later).

Rear elevation is abutted to left by a two storey rear return. Its remaining wall is smooth cement rendered and has a large modern stained timber window to ground and first floors.

The return roof is pitched, its right pitch has been raised almost flat and felted, its left pitch is in natural slate. Walls as main block. It is in two stages, that to right is shallow, forming part of the house, and that to left continues as a long outbuilding. Right stage has a large modern stained timber window to each floor and its right cheek has a stained timber door (to kitchen), with modern window over. Its left stage (outbuilding) advances from rear elevation, enclosing the yard to the S, its left cheek fronting Caddells Lane. Pitched natural slate roof with single red brick chimney between house section and outbuilding. Right check of this stage is smooth cement rendered with door to right and wide opening through to garage door on Caddell's Lane; first floor has three modern timber 1/1 top hung casement windows unevenly spaced and of varying sizes. Most of it is abutted by a large two storey shed, open ended to yard, the timber partitioning in which has been constructed with the window shutters from the house.

Left elevation of return faces S onto Caddell’s Lane. This face is smooth cement rendered with the exception of a single bay at left end, which is dashed (as house). This bay has a modern stained timber window to each floor. The remainder of this elevation has an imposing granite-dressed coachway to centre. It consists of a vehicular entrance and flanking pedestrian doors, all with V-jointed ashlar quoins over chamfered plinths, raised imposts and radial voussoirs framing their semi-elliptical heads. The vehicle entrance has sheeted metal doors and an original radial timber tympanum. The pedestrian doors are sheeted timber with similar heads, and decorated with four horizontal bands of metal studs. Left pedestrian door has a pair of conical stones set at plinth level. Over this entrance, just below eaves level, is a narrow rectangular smooth cement-rendered recessed panel with granite cill. To left and right of this entrance, at first floor, is a single infilled granite opening with granite cill. The other openings seem later and are as follows: To left at ground floor is a modern up & over garage door. At extreme right is a large metal door at ground floor; over are two 2/2 modern fixed windows without cills.

End gable of rear return is rendered and partially abutted by an adjoining building. (rubble stone construction is exposed at ground floor left.)

Small front garden is enclosed with vertical iron railings with foliated spearheads and applied decoration on a dwarfed granite wall. Two separate matching gates hung from highly decorative iron posts, one on either side of porch. Railings curve at corner of Caddell’s Lane.

Historical information

Not shown on 1776 Meade Estate map. First appears on 1834 Valuation map. Premises noted in 1835 Valuation as being occupied by Andrew McClenaghan (as magistrate he was responsible for the running and upkeep of the market house/ court). Clarke states that this house was erected in 1860 by the McClenehans who were then owners of the town gas works (HB16/08/006).

Measurements given as 41ft x 28ft 6in x 22ft 6in + return (similar to c.1862 Valuation statistics and today).

The outbuildings fronting Caddell’s Lane first appear on the 1860 town map (complete with coach and pedestrian entrances). The 1834 map shows a terrace of 12 houses – all are exempted from valuation indicating that they were probably one-storey and thatched.

Current occupant (1999) has been resident since the late 1970s. He states that the house was in poor condition and required much modernisation. He replaced all the ground floor ceilings but that to the hall, and removed the original linings, architraves and shutters from the windows, the shutters are used in the outbuilding as partitions.

Primary sources:
1. Meade Estate: A Map of the Town of Rathfriland (1776) Now in Norfolk and Norwich Record Office.
2. PRONI 1834 Valuation town map (1:1760), VAL 1D/3/3.
3. PRONI 1835 First Valuation book, VAL 1B/ 358B, p.43.
4. OS 1:500 scale town map, Rathfriland (1860), (PRONI OS 8/24/1/4)
5. Information from the owner in 1999.

Secondary sources:
1. E.M.Clarke “Round about Rathfriland” Outlook Press, Rathfriland 1981. Rathfriland Public Library, John Street.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This building has been much altered, both internally and externally and retains few features of special architectural or historic interest. Only the coachway is of any interest: it is ashlar granite construction, with original pedestrian doors and tympanum panels.