41 Bronte Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A detached asymmetrical two-storey three-bay eighteenth-century farmhouse, located on the Brontë Road, south of Banbridge, adjacent to a small split-level vernacular house (HB17/08/019B). Both houses are associated with the Brontë family. The farmhouse is L-shaped on plan with single storey outbuildings.

Pitched natural slate roof with rendered skews and plain gable chimneystacks. Cast iron rainwater goods on corbelled eaves. Walling is unpainted cement render over a plain plinth. Windows are replacement 6/6 timber sashes with horns in plain reveals, diminished to first floor. Projecting concrete cills.

Principal elevation faces south-east and is three openings wide; left bay is wider. Replacement timber entrance door with glazed upper panel and granite threshold.

South-west gable is blank.

Rear elevation is abutted at centre by a full height return. Left and right bay each has a window to each floor. The return has a blank gable, lit at each floor by irregularly arranged fenestration to each side, and accessed via a replacement timber door to left cheek.

North-east gable is blank.

Setting

The house is set on an elevated site, slightly back from and facing the road, with small front garden bounded by a cement-rendered boundary wall with modern pedestrian and vehicular gates. Cement driveway to east; to west, above the level of the road is a single-storey traditional outbuilding abutted to the road by a lower lean-to store accessed from road level. Roofs are natural slate; walls are limewashed rubble stone; openings are timber sheeted. The land falls steeply away to west, and the garden and outbuilding are retained by a high wall, which bounds a farmyard at a lower level. Agricultural land to north.

Roof: Slate
Walling: Cement render
Windows: Timber sash
RWG: Cast iron

Historical information

No. 41 Bronte Road, a two-storey farmhouse, was constructed prior to 1833 as it appears on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map in that year depicted as a rectangular building. It is not known whether No. 40 Bronte Road, a one-and-a-half-storey cottage, had been constructed at that time, however the Ordnance Survey map also depicted a long building to the south of No. 41 stretching along the Bronte Road (for No. 40 Bronte Road see – HB 17/08/019B). The site was not included in the Townland Valuations of the 1830s suggesting that both properties were valued at less than the £5 minimum rating.

The second edition of the Ordnance Survey map records that the current single-storey outbuilding to the south of No. 41 Bronte Road had been constructed by 1853. Griffith’s Valuation (c. 1862) records that the farmhouse, valued at £3 10s. was occupied by a Mr. James Bronte who leased the property from John S. Crawford (a Crawfordsburn-based landowner who owned over 5,000 acres in Co. Down). Crawford also let No. 40 Bronte Road to James’ brother, Welsh Bronte. James Bronte continued to reside at No. 41 Bronte Road until his death in 1870; his brother died in 1868 leaving both properties vacant.

By 1873 nos 40 and 41 Bronte Road had been combined into a single property in the Annual Revision which recorded that a Mr. Thomas McClory, a local farmer, had taken over the lease. McClory continued to reside at the address until 1885 when his relative Owen McClory took over possession of the site residing there until his death in 1897 (PRONI Wills). The Annual Revisions, however, continued to list Owen McClory as the occupant of both properties up until 1920 when a Mrs. Margaret McClory was recorded as tenant. The 1901 and 1911 Census both record that an Owen McClory did not reside in the townland of Ballynaskeagh in those years. There were a large number of McClory’s resident in the townland at that time making identification of the property on the Census Building Return’s difficult. Margaret McClory occupied nos 40 and 41 Bronte Road until her death in 1936, her will recorded her as a spinster and it is not known who the property passed to after her death (PRONI Wills).

Field inspection finds that No. 41 Bronte Road may date from the mid-18th century. Nos. 40 and 41 Bronte Road are historically significant as dwellings associated with the Bronte and McClory’s, families’ central to the history of the Bronte family in the area. Welsh Bronte (1786-1868), as well as his sibling James Bronte (1783-1870), were the younger brothers of the Rev. Patrick Bronte (1777-1861).

Patrick, Welsh and James Bronte were the sons of Hugh Bronte and Alice McClory. Hugh Bronte was originally from the townland of Lisnacreevy, however when he fell in love with Alice McClory (a Roman Catholic from Ballynaskeagh) they eloped and were married in 1776 at Magherally Old Church (HB 17/12/007). The couple settled in a small single-storey cottage the townland of Emdel (now a ruin, see Bronte Memorial House HB17/08/021). Their first child, Patrick Bronte was born at the cottage in 1777 and later became schoolmaster of Drumballyroney Schoolhouse (see HB17/09/012) before leaving Ireland c. 1800 to study for at Cambridge for a career in the church. The Rev. Patrick Bronte had six children including Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte; his daughters wrote a number of famous novels including Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre which have become seminal works in the English language (Cannon).

Welsh and James Bronte continued to reside in Ballynaskeagh, the townland of their mother’s family, until their deaths in 1868 and 1870 respectively. Upon their deaths occupation of the site reverted back to the McClory family whose different members continued to reside at the site until Margaret McClory’s death in 1936. It is traditionally believed that No. 40 Bronte Road was the original home of Alice McClory before she married Hugh Bronte in 1776 (Crowe). No 41 Bronte Road was listed in 1977 and continues to be occupied.

References

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/41/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1833
2. PRONI OS/6/3/41/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1853
3. PRONI OS/6/3/41/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1903
4. PRONI OS/6/3/41/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1903-1918
5. PRONI VAL/1/A/3/41 – Townland Valuation Map 1830s
6. PRONI VAL/1/B/351 – Townland Valuations 1830s
7. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/55B – Griffith’s Valuation c. 1862
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/14A – Annual Revisions 1864-1878
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/14B – Annual Revisions 1879-1889
10. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/14C – Annual Revisions 1890-1908
11. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/14D – Annual Revisions 1909-1923
12. PRONI T1416/1 – Pedigree of the Bronte family 1745-c. 1900
13. PRONI Wills Catalogue (14 Mar 1897; 14 Mar 1936)
14. Census of Ireland (1901 / 1911)
15. First Survey Record – HB17/08/018 (1970)

Secondary Sources

1. Cannon, J., ‘The history of the Bronte family: From Ireland to Wuthering Heights’ Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000.
2. Crowe, W. H., ‘The ring of Mourne’ Dundalk: Dundalgan Press, 1968.

Online Resources

1. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography -
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3525/?back=,3522

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

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A plainly detailed asymmetrical two-storey three-bay farmhouse. The house is architecturally unremarkable, having been modernised with few original features remaining intact. It is primarily of interest due to its associations with the Brontë heritage of the area, which is of historic significance. The traditionally constructed outbuilding and the associated split-level vernacular dwelling (HB17/08/019B), form part of a coherent traditional roadside farm. A third part of the group, with associative connections, is the Brontë Memorial (HB17/08/019C), located a short distance to south.

General comments

Amended with a suffix as part of the Bronte Road group of structures associated with the Bronte Heritage Trail. Formerly HB17/08/019.