6 Lisnagree Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two-storey farmhouse with pitched roof and two-storey rear return located on S side of Lisnagree Road, approximately 4 miles SW of Poyntpass, Co Armagh. The house faces approximately E onto a farmyard with an outbuilding to SE.

Pitched natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles and concrete tiled verge. Three brick chimney stacks on front block, one on gable of rear return. Painted roughcast/lime render to walls.

Front Elevation (E)
Four bay façade with porch located right of centre. Remnants of former attached section on left side with low timber sheeted door. Single window opening to either side of porch, three window openings to first floor level, all boarded over apart from top left which has a 1/1 timber sliding sash window.
Porch has pitched natural slate roof with wide arched fanlight with naïve coloured lights over door opening with sidelights (boarded over). Scalloped timber fascia to front. Lined & ruled rendered walls. S face of porch has a 1/1 margin-pane timber sliding sash window with arched head. N face has door opening with arched head, boarded over.

Side elevation (S)
Gable with remnants of former pitched roof return visible. Door opening with remnants of timber/glazed door. Single window opening to first floor level, right of centre, blocked up.
S side of return partially seen at time of survey; door opening on ground floor level and single window opening on first floor level with remains of 1/1 timber sliding sash window with exposed sash box.

Rear elevation (W)
Single door opening on ground floor level and window opening aligned above (both boarded over) on rear façade of front block.
Two storey return to left of centre.
Rear façade of return (W) is a blind gable with chimney with two decorative yellow clay pots to apex on W face. Random stone, chimney flue brickwork and lime render all visible on gable.
Rear façade of front block on right side of return partially seen at time of survey; 2/2 timber sliding sash window to first floor on right side, two door openings seen partially seen on ground floor level.

Side elevation (N)
Blind façade.
Rear return has two window openings on ground floor level and a single window opening on first floor level (all boarded over).

Materials:
Windows – openings mostly boarded over, few remaining are timber sliding sash with single glazing
Walls – mixture of painted roughcast over lime render over stone / lined & ruled render to porch
Roof – natural slate with black clay ridge tiles
RWGs – Front elevation has a cast iron gutter to left side and remnants of CI gutter

Setting
House is located on the side of the road with the N gable directly onto a grass verge. Rubblestone boundary walling, wrought iron pedestrian gate leading to porch, cement rendered pier and capping stone to right side of yard entrance. Wrought iron gates and piers to side, rear and across the road with piers set on the diagonal. Remnants of stone outbuilding to S side of house.
Corrugated iron-sheeted barrel-vaulted hay shed on E side with lean-to section onto grass verge with rubblestone walling and corrugated iron roof. Attractively sited stone outbuilding with redbrick detailing and pitched natural slate roof on SE side of yard. Taller section to N side.

Historical information

The original dwelling house on this site pre-dates the first edition of 1835. The house was raised and extended between 1861 and 1906, and a number of outbuildings were added to the site, including a surviving detached outbuilding to the SE of the site that dates to between 1906 and 1911.

The first edition map (1835) shows a building of vernacular proportions, roughly 70 feet in length, at right angles to the adjacent road. On the second edition (1861) this structure has diminished in size to roughly 40 feet. In the contemporary Griffith’s Valuation (1862), the house is listed as the dwelling of Thomas Finch, valued at £1.10, indicating a simple single-storey vernacular dwelling, and is leased from local landlord Maxwell Close of Drumbanagher House.

Although the evidence for the development of this house is not completely clear, a possible scenario that appears to fit the evidence we have, is that the original single-storey house became a side extension to a new two-storey, two-bay house built between 1861 and 1906. In due course (and before 1911), part of the original single-storey house was likely raised (some of the original house/outbuildings remained as a single-storey attachment to the house, now gone) to form a third two-storey bay to the new house. Another possibility is that the single storey house was extended northwards after 1861 and then raised in stages, first the two right hand bays and then the left-hand bay.

The current owners have relayed a story passed down to them that the Finch family offered accommodation to Welsh navvies who worked on the nearby Lissummon railway tunnel (ARM022:500) (constructed between 1861 and 1864). The course of the tunnel passes less than 100 metres from the house, which lies about a third of the way from the NW entrance. The workers are said to have occupied the left-hand bay of the house (probably the original dwelling house), and it is thought that some of the stone used to build the tunnel may have been used on improvements to the house around this time.

In the 1901 census, Thomas Alex Finch, 71-year-old farmer, was listed as resident with his wife, who worked as a seamstress, and his son, William James, a rate collector and daughter-in-law, also working as a seamstress. The younger couple had four young children. Also resident in the house were two servants, one young man from Armagh who helped on the farm as a labourer and a 16-year-old boy from Scotland who was a ‘general servant’. The dwelling was slated, had five windows to the front elevation and seven rooms – these features show that the current house had been built by 1901 although this change is not noted in valuation records until 1911.

The new dwelling house with a rear extension is shown on the third edition OS map of 1906. However, the building was not entered into valuation records until 1911, when the valuation was raised from £1.10s to £8. A further rise in valuation came in 1918 when some of the new outbuildings became rateable, giving a final valuation for the house and outbuildings of £10. The valuer’s notebook of 1911 describes the house and outbuildings as ‘improved’, and further notes that the main dwelling house has been ‘raised’ and that a new two-storey extension has been built to the rear. A single-storey annexe to the south elevation of the main dwelling house is also noted as ‘improved’. This would appear to be a remnant of the previous dwelling house and /or its outbuildings (now gone although the outline is visible). The new dwelling house had a complex plan which included an L-shaped projection to the front of the dwelling (now gone). The valuer’s notebook states that the accommodation comprised: two kitchens, two sitting rooms and four bedrooms. There was also a byre for six cows, a stable for three horses and a shed for eight bullocks.

Two detached outbuildings were added to the site between the 2nd and 3rd editions, these do not appear to have survived, but a new outbuilding is shown in the valuer’s notebook of 1911, which post-dates the 3rd edition of 1906 and survives to the SE of the site. The valuer’s notebook also identifies the large hay barn to the E of the site as having been added c.1911. The roof of the haybarn was originally supported by Belfast trusses but these were casualties of a storm in recent years (owner information).

By the time of the 1911 census, Thomas had died and his son, William James Finch had taken over the farm. Finch also owned nearby ‘Fir Grove’ (HB16/21/103), which he had taken over c1904, but, as far as can be determined from the primary source records, the family’s main home was the current dwelling. William and his wife had added four more children to their family by 1911, and they now employed three servants, a domestic, a labourer and a ‘cowboy’. The house is said to have five windows to the front elevation and nine rooms internally which is broadly consistent with the description in the 1901 census. The front elevation originally had a projection to the left-hand bay which may have obscured the ground floor window, or the sixth window may have been a later addition. William James Finch had become the outright owner of the dwelling house in 1909 under the Land Purchase Acts.

Despite W J Finch’s profession as collector of the poor rate for Newry No 2 district, he was well regarded and his funeral in 1928 was reported in the newspapers for the ‘enormous dimensions’ of the funeral cortege. When William was forced to resign owing to ill-health in 1926, his son Henry Samuel was appointed by a majority of 15 by Armagh County Council.

Another of William’s sons, Alfred John, recorded as 6 months old in the 1911 census, became a rector. Alfred John’s biography in Clergy of Down and Dromore notes that he was born at a house called ‘Rose Hollow’, which is likely to be the current house. He was educated at the Royal School in Dungannon and at Trinity College Dublin and eventually became Rector of Tyrella and Rathmullan (1943-55) and then Knocknamuckley (1955-75).

The house remained in the Finch family at the time of the First General Revaluation in 1933 with Henry Samuel Finch, William’s son, now in residence. The dwelling is described as a ‘good house. Good finish and repair’. The floors were tiled and boarded and the ceilings were of plaster. The accommodation comprised two kitchens, a reception, scullery, store and pantry downstairs and a reception and three bedrooms upstairs. A plan and dimensions are given for the house and outbuildings, showing that the projection to the front elevation and the annexe to the side were in use as agricultural outbuildings. Henry contested the valuation in 1935, saying that the house was ‘over 100 years built’. The valuer describes it as an ‘old fashioned comfortable farmhouse…in very good order inside, the outside is not so good’. At the time the house had no water supply and drinking water had to be brought by cart. Further outbuildings were added to the rear of the house between 1906 and 1933, and between 1933 and 1955, however, none of these additional structures have survived.

By 1943, Henry had moved out of the house, due to its internal condition, and into another dwelling nearby, most likely ‘Fir Grove’, but he continued to use the farm outbuildings. Off the kitchen was a stove room in which there was a milk separator and he also kept harness and farm implements in the outbuildings. Some of the rooms of the house were being used for grain storage by this time. The valuer assessed the structure as good but noted that some of the floors had dry rot.

By 1944, the house was let to a workman, William Pollock, while Henry Finch retained one room on the ground floor as a dairy and used some upper rooms to store grain. Eric Ewart became the outright owner of the house in 1956 and the house has since passed to new owners.

The dwelling house is currently (2025) uninhabited and has been so for some years. The current owners moved the original boundary wall to the house in 2020/21 and it now lies within a few feet of its former position.

References:
Primary Sources:

1. PRONI OS/6/2/22/1 First edition Six Inch OS map (1835)
2. PRONI OS/6/2/22/2 Second edition Six Inch OS map (1861)
3. PRONI VAL/2/B/2/37E Griffith’s Valuation, Barony of Orior Lower (1862)
4. PRONI VAL/12/B/15/24A-D Annual Revisions Electoral Division of Tullyhappy (1864-1929)
5. PRONI OS/6/2/22/3 Third edition Six Inch OS map (1906)
6. PRONI VAL/12/A/3/84 Valuer’s Notebook (1911)
7. Portadown Times, 11th June 1926
8. Portadown times, 2nd March 1928
9. Portadown News, 1 November 1952
10. PRONI OS/6/2/22/4 Fourth edition Six Inch OS map (1955)
11. Census of Ireland 1901 and 1911 online
12. PRONI VAL/3/C/2/13 First General Revaluation ED Drumbanagher (1936-57)
13. PRONI VAL/3/D/6/N/2 First General Revaluation, Valuer’s Binder TL Cullentragh (1936-57)
14. Large scale OS maps 1906, 1955, 1972 (https://shop.centremapslive.co.uk/)

Secondary Sources:

15. Rankin, Fred (1996) Clergy of Down and Dromore (Part I) Belfast: Ulster Historical Foundation
16. Information supplied by current owners

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

R. Age
S. Authenticity
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A two-storey three-bay direct entry vernacular farmhouse predating 1833. Its early character, proportion and styling survive. The interiors retain the general character and building layout has been retained. The outbuildings, stone walling, gates and piers all make a contribution to the historic rural setting of the building. This is a good example of a developed vernacular of 'strong farmer' type now becoming increasingly rare, demonstrating a robust and typical character, surviving in its original setting.