Glen House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Derelict one and half storey/ three bay (to upper floor) vernacular house up long lane on E side of Barmeen Road. Internal detailing suggests that right bay is a later addition; the original building would therefore have been symmetrical (see later).

Pitched natural slate roof with clay tiles and four coped and rendered red brick chimneys, one to each gable and on either side of central bay. That between centre and left bay is a dummy, probably built to retain the symmetry of the building when the right bay was added. Rainwater goods now gone. All walls are wet dashed lime rendered over granite rubble unless otherwise stated. Rendered advanced brick eaves course.

Principal elevation faces NE. Main entrance is set at left on central bay. Its tall (2.4m high) doorway is blocked up and all timbers gone. To its right is a window opening. Left and right bays each have a similar opening. The left and central bay windows are symmetrically centred around the door. All window frames are gone but the openings retain their granite cills.

Left gable is lined cement rendered with a window opening to upper floor left.

Openings on rear elevation are irregularly laid out and not as large as those to front. Left and right bays each have single window openings. Central bay has marks on render to suggest it has once had a narrow lean-to porch at centre. Within this is a recessed four panelled door with timber lintel. To its left is a window opening now infilled. To its right is small low window, above which (at half-landing level) is a larger window opening.

Right gable has single window opening at upper floor level.

Setting

To NE of house is a small garden, now cleared and in view of the Newry Road to NE (which would account for the formal nature of the garden front of house). To SW of house is the former rear yard and remains of a demolished outbuilding. The access lane from Barmeen Road runs into this rear yard. Cement rendered rubble stone pillars with moulded pyramidal caps flank a pair of ornate 20thC wrought-iron gates with small plaque reading “McIlroy/ Lt York St/ Belfast”. Front garden has no separate access.

Historical information

Appears on the 1833 OS 6” map. Valuation map for this property is missing, so it is impossible to ascertain its dimensions etc. Valued at £3 in c.1862 valuation, indicating a small but substantial house. No change in valuation thereafter. The house in its present form (with additional bay at N) would seem, therefore, to have existed by 1860. When it was built is uncertain, but it is probable that it is a mid-19thC refurbishment of an existing early 19thC house.

Primary sources:

1. OS 6" map, 1st edition (1833) Co Down sheet 41 (PRONI OS 6/3/41/1)
2. PRONI Second valuation c.1862, VAL 2B/3/60A, p.36.
3. PRONI Valuation revision books, 1866-1930, VAL 12B/22/10.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This building illustrates the builder’s attempts to create a formal façade (to garden), while the rear reflects the irregular placement of vernacular openings. Although of good standing in its day compared with most vernacular buildings, many important features have been lost (i.e. doors, windows and floors).