16 Ballymore Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single-storey three-bay vernacular hearth-lobby dwelling pre-dating 1834. Rectangular linear plan form with attached outbuilding and windbreaker porch. Located in the adjacent field east of 17 Ballymore Road, approximately 4 miles south of Banbridge.

Pitched corrugated-iron roofing with corrugated ridging and cement skews; brick chimneystack and no rainwater goods. Lime render over rubble masonry walling. 2/2 sliding-sash windows with vertical glazing bars and horns, unless otherwise stated; no cills. Painted timber-sheeted front door with exposed timber frame set into projecting catslide windbreaker porch.

Asymmetrical principal elevation facing west with windbreaker porch right of centre, two windows to left and single window right.

The left gable is blank.

The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged with projected outshot to the right bay. Central steel-framed timber casement window with horizontal glazing bar.

The right gable is abutted by a corrugated-iron roofed, rubble masonry outbuilding with lower ridge and eaves levels. Partially built up in concrete block to the west elevation.

Setting

Rural
setting on an elevated site with no direct access and largely screened from view. Dry stone wall enclosing the site to the west and south encompassing a wrought-iron gate with hinges fixed to an adjacent tree. Rubble masonry well located to the south boundary and a privy to the northwest corner of the site.

Roofing: Corrugated-iron
Walling: Lime render
Window: Timber
RWG: None

Historical information

A building is shown on the first and second edition OS maps of 1834 and 1860 which appears to correspond to the present structure, although additions have been made to the length of the building more recently. The house is not listed in the Townland Valuation (1828-40) as it would not have reached the threshold for inclusion. John Sterritt was the tenant farmer at the time of Griffith’s Valuation (1858-64) and the farm of around 7 acres together with the house and outbuildings valued at £1.5s were leased from the Earl of Clanwilliam. John Sterritt paid an annual rent of £7.15s.

The farm remained in the Sterritt family and at the time of the 1901 census John Sterritt, 82-year-old farmer was resident with his wife Mary and his three adult children, his sons working as agricultural labourers and his daughter as a laundress. The family had a boarder, a ten-year-old boy John Bell. At this period the two-room house with three windows was thatched. By 1911 John Sterritt’s younger son Archibald had taken over the farm and lived there with his wife and baby daughter. By this time the house appears to have been re-roofed with tin.

In the 1930s the occupier was Mary Sterritt. First General Revaluation (1933/4) valuer’s notes give a plan of the house with dimensions, showing an attached store and calf house and a separate corrugated iron outbuilding (still present). The house and calf house are also roofed in corrugated iron, while the store has a felt roof. The house has not been lived in for some years and currently lies derelict.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/40/1 First Edition OS Map 1834
2. PRONI OS/6/3/40/2 Second Edition OS map 1860
3. PRONI OS/6/3/40/3 Third Edition OS Map 1903
4. PRONI OS/6/3/40/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1903-18
5. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/58B Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/22/9A-E Annual Revisions (1866-1929)
7. PRONI VAL/12/F/4/15/7 Annual Revisions (1930-35)
8. PRONI VAL/3/C/4/29 First General Revaluation (1936-57)
9. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/15/K/1 First General Revaluation (1933-57)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Single-storey three-bay vernacular hearth-lobby dwelling pre-dating 1834, demonstrating many vernacular characteristics, largely centralised around the layout and central hearth, this dwelling is an example of an early traditional farmhouse with surviving setting features, such as a well and a privy.