Harrymount House Tullyvallen West Road Newtownhamilton Co Armagh BT35 0BU

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Southeast facing, single storey, five bay symmetrical, hipped roof gentleman's residence in restrained neo classical style. The complex appears in the OS first edition (1834-5) map. The main dwelling includes returns to the west and east and encompasses a range of outbuildings to the North forming a courtyard. The dwelling is accessed from Tullyvallen West Road, to the south via a winding tree lined avenue replete with wrought iron gates hung on stone pillars.

Front elevation has natural slate hipped roof with flush verges, terracotta ridge tiles with two brick-built chimneys positioned equidistant on the ridge line. Walls are lime rendered rubblestone likley from the local quarry. No evidence of rainwater goods. Pair of square headed window openings, either side of central arched doorway with stone sills to windows. One window remains intact, with three over three single-glazed timber sliding sash margin paned with exposed box sashes. The remainder of window openings are infilled with rubble/concrete and block/timber boarding. Corrugated sheeted gate infill to central entrance door opening.

Rear, (northwest) elevation with remains of three, square headed window openings, all of which are blocked/partially blocked with infill rubble. To immediate left, northward projecting wall defines easterly portion of rear yard enclosure while to the right a single storey, corrugated tin sheet defines the westerly boundary, with timber framed and sheeted, single door access located to right hand side.
Gable elevation to west has remains of a one over one sliding sash window centrally located within an outline of a defined brick arch opening, infilled with rubble stone. To left of main block remains of single storey, pitched tin roofed wing, hipped at junction with main dwelling and having two square headed window openings with timber cladding infill, flanked either side with outline of former openings, infilled with rubble stone. Further to left remains of arched opening giving vehicular access into courtyard. Gable elevation to east has recent intervention in form of large square headed opening, framed in parts with concrete blockwork.

To rear of enclosed courtyard, in northwest corner rubble remains of gabled, two storey outbuilding with remnants of external step access to upper level. Remains of east facing circular windows at upper level. The rear enclosure is defined by rubble stone walling with occasional infill of concrete block work where stone is missing.

Setting:
Single storey five-bay neo classical villa attractively sited in a miniature mature parkland
setting, framed with mature trees and approached by a gently curved avenue. The house is attractively sited on an eminence to the south of the bronze age cairn with outbuildings carefully arranged to the rear to form a commodious courtyard. The courtyard enclosure is further defined by a wall along north and east sides and on an axial relationship with bronze age cairn surmounted by the 'turret' or pigeon house behind. Long views are framed with mature deciduous stands of trees.

Roofing: Natural slate, corrugated tin
Walling: Limestone render/rubblestone.
Windows: Timber, sliding sash
RWG: none

Historical information

Harry Mount (also spelled Harrymount) House dates to c1800, first appearing in newspaper archives in 1831. The building could not be identified on Rocque’s (1760) map of County Armagh and can be assumed to be somewhat later in date. On the first edition (1834-5), the house is depicted, captioned ‘Harry Mount’, as a dwelling house with returns to the W and E and a range of outbuildings to the N forming a broken square around a central courtyard. On the 2nd edition of 1861 a ‘Turret’ is captioned to the rear of the house (the structure is also shown, uncaptioned, on the 1st edition), situated at the summit of, what we now know to be a bronze age cairn, a roughly circular mound of loose stones, c20m across and c3.5m high. In the McCutcheon industrial heritage archive the tower is identified as a windmill, but in the Sites and Monuments Record it is said to be a ‘pigeon-house’. The ‘turret’ is 13 feet high and 5 feet in internal diameter, making it more likely that this was a pigeon house that provided food for the residents of Harrymount who would have harvested the ‘squabs’ or young pigeons from internal nestboxes.

The house was the dwelling of the Barker family (a road called ‘Barkers Road’ runs for c1.5 miles to the north of Harrymount between Cullyhanna Road and Blaney Road). The name Harry Mount/Harrymount appears in newspapers as the residence of J[oshua] P Barker, local magistrate, in 1831 and of Henry Rowan Barker, solicitor, in 1836. Lewis’s Topographical Dictionary of 1837, remarks of Newtownhamilton Parish, ‘There are many good houses in the parish, of which the principal is Harrymount, the residence of Henry Barker Esq’.

Harry Mount is recorded in the Townland Valuation of 1837-9 as the residence of William and then Arthur Barker. Unusually the house is recorded twice, with some discrepancies in the dimensions given (the earlier book (1837) includes dimensions for some very narrow elements of the main dwelling house that are not separately valued in the later (1839) book) and discrepancies in the quality mark given for the buildings. Both house and outbuildings were slated and the quality mark varied between A- and B-. This indicates that the buildings were likely not new at this time, but the house itself was in a fairly good state of repair, while some of the outbuildings may have been ‘deteriorated by age’. One of the unusual elements of the house was an ‘account office’ of 23x13x8 feet and the house also included a kitchen (50.6x13x8.6) and a scullery (8.6x4x5.3). The outbuildings were a ‘potatoe house’ (17x13x11), a stable (53.5x13.6x12), a piggery (8.6x12x7.3) and a byre (1837) which is later (1839) identified as a ‘car’ or carriage house (15.6x11.6x5.3)

The resident in 1837, William Barker Esq (born 1802, the son of Rev William Barker, Rector of Newtownhamilton) was a solicitor in the firm of Barker & Kaye. Barker was actively involved in the late 1830s in attempts to tackle an upsurge in agrarian unrest and sectarian violence in the Cullyhanna area. Barker was a speaker at an immense meeting of concerned locals, estimated at 30,000 people, that took place at Cullyhanna in 1838. He was nominated to become part of a committee that would monitor the situation within the local area. As a solicitor and a prominent member of the Church of Ireland community his role was to warn the populace what would happen if the area was ‘proclaimed’ i.e. subject to emergency measures including curfews, special jury trials and extra taxation. He proposed that a catholic, a presbyterian and a member of the established church should be selected in each townland to co-operate with the committee in preserving the peace (McConville). William Barker became a highly respected individual and when he died in 1866, over 2,000 people are said to have attended his funeral (Armagh Guardian).

William Barker left Harry Mount c1839 and Arthur Barker (mostly likely William’s son or brother) was then resident in the house. However, by the time of Griffith’s Valuation (c1862), Arthur Barker was letting out the house to Thomas Armstrong and the buildings were valued at £14. Armstrong was a retired police officer, whose son John Armstrong, worked as a cashier at the Belfast Bank in Castleblayney. The son unfortunately died at ‘Harrymount Cottage’ in 1865 at the young age of 25.

The entrance gate to Harrymount bears the mark ‘S&E Gardner, Armagh’. This is the mark of the Armagh Foundry, which was established by Samuel Gardner in 1832, his younger brother, Edward, joining as a partner shortly afterwards. The foundry was known as Samuel Gardner & Son from c1860, making it likely that the gate dates from c1832-60. The Armagh Foundry was known for the manufacture of metal goods such as gutters, pipes, iron safes, field gates, tomb railings and ploughs and churns, but was also involved in complex engineering to produce items such as pumps, steam engines, hydraulic rams, thrashing and scutching machinery and gas fittings. The Foundry made the iron obelisk (dating from 1864) located to the north of Armagh city which forms part of Armagh Observatory’s Meridian Markers (HB15/03/002) as well as two important ‘Dredge’ double cantilever bridges at Caledon (HB13/10/077 (1844 – relocated), HB13/10/029 (1845).

The valuation of Harrymount House was reduced to £9 in 1871 because the house was in a ‘bad state’. By 1876, the house was being rented to Arthur McKeown, a medical doctor. The house continued to decline at this time and it appears that this may have been partly due to Arthur McKeown’s financial difficulties. In 1888, McKeown and his son were convicted for assault against a bailiff that came to Harrymount to execute a ‘civil bill decree’ for an amount of money owed to a Crossmaglen auctioneer. Father and son were sentenced to three months’ imprisonment each with hard labour. However, Arthur McKeown continues to be recorded as resident in the house and it is probable that his wife continued to live there while he was serving his sentence. In 1888 it is noted that the landlord had changed to Sir William B Kaye, QC and Assistant Under Secretary for Ireland. The Kaye family were relatives of the Barker family and had shared a legal practice with them in the 1830s.

In 1891/2, a remarkable drama unfolded when Arthur McKeown made a claim on the $1.5m estate of a Pennsylvania oil tycoon named John McKeown, a story that was widely reported in Britain and Ireland (Ulster Gazette). Arthur claimed to be John’s brother, and the claim was taken seriously enough for a Pittsburgh lawyer to sail to Ireland to meet Arthur at Harrymount and gather evidence. The outcome is unclear, but it is strongly implied in newspaper reports that Arthur, who is described as being ‘desperately poor’ at the time, was to be paid off, in order to stop him ‘annoying the persons to whom the personal estate has been distributed’.

Nonetheless, Arthur McKeown appears to have remained at Harrymount until 1898 when the house and land was purchased by Mrs Georgina Leslie of Clontarf, Dublin under the Land Purchase Acts, although she does not appear to have lived in the house, which fell vacant. In 1905, Mrs Leslie attempted to sell the ‘very attractive farm of land and residence…known as Harrymount’. Little reference is made to the house itself which appears to have been falling into disrepair and by 1911, the property had been sold to ‘E Caherty’, subsequently being let out to Anne Carraher (1917) and James Caherty (1919). In 1917 it was noted that the house was dilapidated, the outbuildings were of ‘no value’ and the house was ‘almost in ruins’, with only two rooms habitable. The valuation was therefore reduced to £1.

At the time of the First General Revaluation (1933-5), James Caherty was the only occupant of the house which was in a ‘dilapidated condition’ and ‘only half in use’, part of the former dwelling being used as outbuildings. The accommodation comprised a kitchen, three bedrooms and one reception, two bedrooms having boarded floors and the kitchen, reception and another bedroom having concrete floors. All ceilings were plastered. Dimensions are given for the single storey dwelling house (53x20 feet – this matches the dimensions given for the main dwelling house in the Townland Valuation of 1837), with a return of 13x23 feet which matches the dimensions of the ‘account office’ described in the Townland Valuation (1837 and 1839).

The Carraher and Caherty families continued to occupy the house alternately in the period up to 1957. The large-scale OS map of 1956 shows that outbuildings to the rear of the house had begun to lose their roofs and field inspection has determined that all the former outbuildings are now roofless or ruined. The dwelling house itself and the attached former ‘account office’ remain roofed but the interiors have been stripped and show signs of having been used as agricultural outbuildings.

The Pevsner Guide to the architecture of South Ulster contains reference to Harrymount, describing it as, 'A neat Late Georgian villa' and a 'perfect example of the gentleman's model farm'.

References:

Primary Sources:

1. Belfast Newsletter, 23rd September, 1831
2. Newry Telegraph, 14th January, 1834
3. Belfast Newsletter, 4th November, 1836
4. PRONI OS/6/2/27/1 First Edition Six Inch OS map (1834-5)
5. PRONI VAL/1/A/2/27A Townland Valuation of Newtownhamilton Parish (1839)
6. PRONI VAL/1/A/2/27B Townland Valuation of Newtownhamilton Parish (1837)
7. Northern Whig, 14th November, 1844
8. PRONI OS/6/2/27/2 Second Edition Six Inch OS map (1861)
9. PRONI Griffith’s Valuation Tullyvallan Townland
10. Armagh Guardian, 19th July 1861
11. PRONI Letters of Admin of John Armstrong, died 4th February 1865
12. Armagh Guardian, 17th February, 1865
13. Armagh Guardian, 18th May, 1866
14. Ulster Gazette, 19th May, 1866
15. PRONI Will of Henry Rowan Barker, died 30th June 1880
16. Ulster Gazette, 21st May 1887
17. Dublin Daily Express, 19th April, 1888
18. British Medical Journal, 14th June, 1890
19. Ulster Gazette, 30th April, 1892
20. Dundee Evening Post, 18th June 1901
21. PRONI OS/6/2/27/3 Third Edition Six Inch OS map (1906-7)
22. PRONI VAL/3/C/2/15 First General Revaluation ED Tullyvallan (1933-57)
23. PRONI VAL/3/D/2/6EE/5 First General Revaluation Valuer’s Binder (1933-57)
24. PRONI OS/6/2/27/4 Fourth Edition Six Inch OS map (1956)

Secondary Sources:

25. McConville, K (2004) ‘The Cullyhanna Peace Meeting of 1838’ Seanchas Ardmhacha: Journal of the Armagh Diocesan Historical Society, Vol 20, No 1, pp.124-140
26. Archbold, Pooler (2022) ‘Armagh Foundry’ History Armagh, Vol5, No 2, pp.4-11
27. Industrial Heritage Record: 00612
28. Northern Ireland Sites and Monuments Record: ARM027:002
29.Mulligan, Kevin V (2013) The Buildings of Ireland: South Ulster. New Haven and London: Yale University Press

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Rare surviving example of Regency style dwellling of the minor gentry set in a miniature mature parkland setting and framed with mature trees and approached by a gently curved avenue with is terminated by a set of early worought iron gates mounted within stone gate piers. The house is a good example of restrained neo classical style and is attractively sited on an eminence to the south of the bronze age cairn with outbuildings carefully arranged to the rear to form a commodious courtyard. The courtyard enclosure is further defined by a wall along north and east sides and on an axial relationship with bronze age cairn surmounted by the 'turret' or pigeon house behind. Long views are framed with mature deciduous stands of trees.