34 Ballynamagna Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached three-bay one-and-half-storey rendered rubblestone former dwelling and range of three detached rubblestone outbuildings, built c.1850, now in use as outbuildings. Located at the end of a long lane to the west of Ballynamagna Road and arranged around a sloping concrete paved yard.

Pitched natural slate roofs with black clay ridge tiles and redbrick eaves courses. Uncoursed rubblestone walling with rough-hewn squared quoins. Square-headed door and window openings formed in redbrick with sheeted timber doors.

Detached three-bay one-and-half-storey lime rendered rubblestone former dwelling located to the east of the yard and set on a north-south axis. The northernmost bay has a slightly lower roof than the remainder with four rendered redbrick chimneystacks. Rough-cast lime render over rubblestone walling with sheeted timber doors and half-doors and boarded window openings with no sills.

Detached three-bay one-and-half-storey rubblestone outbuilding enclosing the north side of the yard set on an east-west axis having a lean-to section and external stone steps abutting the west gable. Exposed rubblestone walling with rough-hewn quoins and gauged brick flat-arched window and door openings. To the eastern bay is a three-centred carriage arch formed in brick with sheeted timber doors.

Further north and set parallel to the north range is a single-storey split-level two-bay rubblestone outbuilding detailed as per above.

Enclosing the south side of the yard is a single-storey rubblestone outbuilding with a large square-headed vehicular opening to the east gable having largely blocked up window and door openings.

Setting:
Located at the end of a long lane to the west of Ballynamagna Road with twentieth-century outbuildings located to the east and a modern dwelling at Ballynamagna Road.

Roof Natural slate
RWG None
Walling Rubblestone
Windows Boarded

Historical information

The current group of farm buildings is shown on the first edition OS map of 1833, and these structures appeared to have survived on the plot, albeit with remodelling and extension over the years, most notably in the mid-nineteenth century. The early farmstead consisted of a house and outbuildings arranged to form three sides of a courtyard and a number of corn/ flax mills in the near vicinity. This property is listed in the Townland Valuation at a valuation of £4.14s.4d and £9.9s.7d for two flax mills and £2.8s.7d for a thatched miller’s house.

Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) records the group of buildings as two separate holdings, with the current farmhouse, newly-built at the time, valued at £4.10s and leased to David Hanna by the representatives of Robert Meade. In 1872 the farm and flax mill passed to Thomas and Andrew Hanna and the valuation of the farm buildings rose to £10, suggesting that rebuilding took place at this time. By 1898 the flax mill was ‘at rest’ and consequently devalued to £7.

The 1901 census lists Thomas and Andrew Hanna in their sixties living in the house with their niece who worked as their house keeper and a further female servant in her thirties. The eight room house had three windows and the flax mill is also listed. Andrew Hanna died in 1906 (31st May 1906) leaving all he had to his niece Mary Jane Radcliffe.

In 1908-9 the farm and flax mill were taken over by Alexander Cromie, and the flax mill is recorded from 1911 as offices, with a devaluation to £6.10s. The farmhouse was described as ‘dilapidated’ in 1909. Census records of 1911 find the Cromie family, a very large one, resident at the farm. Alexander Cromie, 57, farmer and mill owner, lived with his wife Mary Eliza and their ten children, and two servants, a general domestic and a male farm servant. The second son, 22, was a graduate of Queen’s and a ‘Classical Teacher’. However, it appears that this family, although in ownership of the farm and mills was living in a larger property nearby, a first class house with thirteen rooms and seventeen windows to the front facade.

The farm remained in the Cromie family for some years, passing to the sixth son, Norman Dickson Cromie, in 1918 and a Cromie was still resident in 1955. Valuation notes of the 1930s state that the house had seven small bedrooms, a parlour and a kitchen and the rent was £3 per annum. A new scutch mill was built nearby in 1945 employing 16 men but by the 1950s it was no longer used as a mill and had become agricultural outbuildings. The farmhouse itself has not been inhabited for some years.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/41/1 First Edition OS Map 1833
2. PRONI OS/6/3/41/2 Second Edition OS map 1853
3. PRONI OS/6/3/41/3 Third Edition OS Map 1903
4. PRONI OS/6/3/41/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1903-18
5. PRONI VAL/1/B/357B Townland Valuation (1828-40)
6. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/59A Griffiths Valuation (1861)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/4A-E Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
8. PRONI VAL/3/C/4/1 First General Revaluation (1933-57)
9. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/3/C/3 First General Revaluation (1933-57)
10. PRONI Will of Andrew Hanna, died 31st May 1906
11. 1901 census online
12. 1911 census online

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Detached three-bay one-and-half-storey rendered rubblestone former dwelling and range of three detached rubblestone outbuildings, built c.1850, now in use as outbuildings arranged around a sloping concrete paved yard. An range of vernacular buildings that retains much of its original appearance and continuing to serve an agricultural purpose. Although of local interest and one of a fast-disappearing type, loss of fabric and changes over time have compromised their interest and they do not merit listing.