40 BRONTE ROAD

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A split level two-bay vernacular house, predating 1833, one-and-a half storeys to left and single storey to right, located on the north side of Bronte Road, adjacent to No.41 (HB17/08/019A), with which it shares associations with the Brontë family. Rectangular plan.

Pitched roofs, corrugated metal to right bay, slated to left, plain brick chimneystacks to gables. No rainwater goods. Walling is rubble stone, with vestiges of limewashed roughcast render. Heavily covered by vegetation to road-facing elevation. Windows are metal-framed casements in plain reveals.

Principal elevation faces south-east. Windbreak entrance porch to right side of right bay, having timber sheeted door, with window to its left. The right bay has a window to each floor (diminished to attic).

South-west gable has a window to ground floor left and an attic window to right; it supports a fence at extreme right.

Rear elevation is blank with the exception of a door covered by metal sheeting at left side.

North-east gable is blank.

Setting

The house opens directly onto a rural country road, and is set on an incline. To north-east is a modern farmyard, and, at a higher level, No.41 Bronte Road (HB17/08/019A) with its associated outbuilding. Marshy grassland to rear.

Roof: Slate & corrugated metal
Walling: stone
Windows: Metal
RWG: None

Historical information

No. 40 Bronte Road, a one-and-a-half-storey cottage (originally thatched but now covered with a corrugated-iron roof), was likely constructed prior to 1833; a building occupying the current site was depicted on the first edition of the Ordnance Survey map in that year, however this structure was a long building (or a range of connected outbuildings) which stretched from the nearby No. 41 Bronte Road (HB 17/08/019A) to the current site. Nos 40 and 41 Bronte Road were not included in the contemporary Townland Valuations (1830s) suggesting that both buildings were valued at less than the £5 minimum.

The one-and-a-half-storey cottage was depicted on the second edition of the Ordnance Survey map in 1853 as a single building situated to the south of No. 41 Bronte Road. The contemporary Griffith’s Valuation (c. 1862) notes that the cottage was occupied by a Mr. Welsh Bronte who let the property, which was valued at £1 10s. from John S. Crawford (a landowner based in Crawfordsburn who owned over 5,000 acres in Co. Down). Crawford also let No. 41 Bronte Road, valued at £3 10s. to James Bronte, Welsh’s brother. Welsh Bronte continued to reside at No. 40 Bronte Road until his death in 1868; by 1873 the cottage was described in a poor state of repair and was devalued to £1. James Bronte died soon after his brother in 1870 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).

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 17/12/009C). The couple settled in a small single-storey cottage the townland of Emdel (now a ruin, see Bronte Memorial House HB17/08/019C). Their first child, Patrick Bronte was born at the cottage in 1777 and later became schoolmaster of Drumballyroney Schoolhouse (see HB17/09/011B) 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 40 Bronte Road was listed in 1977, however the site is currently laying vacant.

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
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

V. Authorship
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A split level vernacular house dating from the late eighteenth century and located on the Bronte Road, south east of Banbridge. The house is traditionally constructed, with single storey entrance bay flanked by a one-and-a-half storey right bay. Although compromised by mid twentieth-century alterations including refenestration and chimneypieces, much historic fabric survives. The house, together with the adjacent farmhouse (HB17/08/019A) and nearby (remains of) home of Patrick Brontë (HB17/08/019C) is of interest due to its associations with the Brontë heritage of the area, which is of international literary significance.

General comments

Renumbered as part of the Bronte Road group of structures associated with the Bronte Heritage Trail. Formerly HB17/08/018.