71 Drumarkin Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A long asymmetrical two-storey three-bay house, built between 1833 and 1859, located at Tirkelly TD, north-east of Rathfriland. Rectangular on plan.

Pitched natural slate roof with angled clay ridge tiles and ruled-and-lined cement rendered chimneystacks to gables and to party wall between central and right bay. Projecting rendered eaves course supporting half round cast iron rainwater goods. Walling is ruled-and-lined cement rendered with stepped quoins; no plinth, but there is a slight batter to right bay. Windows are timber sash to principal elevation, 8/8 to ground floor, 8/4 to first floor, with painted masonry cills. Timber casements to rear. Four-raised-and-fielded panelled timber door with bolection moulding and cast-iron door furniture; segmental spoked transom; all surrounded by a painted moulded masonry surround on plinth blocks, accessed by a granite step.

Principal elevation faces west. Left and right bays have a window to each floor; central bay is wider and has entrance offset to left and a window to right; first floor openings arranged over.

North gable is blank.

Rear elevation has asymmetrical fenestration of various sizes; modern glazed timber door to central bay right, and French doors to left bay.

South gable is blank.

Setting

The house is aligned with the road, set back behind a small front garden; the site is bounded to the road by a roughcast boundary wall and a gravel path (on axis with the front door) and is accessed by a wrought-iron pedestrian gate on wide square piers with pyramidal stone caps. Alcoved entrance walls to a short gravel drive at right side of house are terminated with square piers supporting reclaimed wrought-iron gates. There is a paved terrace to rear, and a garden enclosed by modern walls to north. Directly opposite (in separate ownership) is a single-storey outbuilding with pitched slate roof, set gable to the road. Walls are rubble stone with vestiges of lime render, cement rendered to north side. To the gable wall is a datestone which is largely illegible (possibly 1796).

Roof: Slate
Walling: Rendered
Windows: Sash
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

The two-storey farmhouse on the Drumarkin Road was constructed sometime between 1833 and 1859 as it first appears on the second edition of the Ordnance Survey map for the area; in 1833 the long single-storey outbuilding, to the west of the house, had been constructed. A building was depicted on the site of the current house at that time, however in 1833 this was oriented north-west by north-east; the existing dwelling is positioned south-west by north-east. A third building (taken down by 1859) is also depicted to the north of the site.

The second edition of the Ordnance Survey map depicts the site as it appears today; the only major change to the layout of the site since 1859 has been the addition of the second single-storey outbuilding (situated beside the surviving outbuilding from 1833) sometime before the current edition of the Ordnance Survey map in 1976. In 1862 Griffith’s Valuation recorded that a Mr. Henry Tufts resided at the site which he let from the Trusted Honourable Robert Meade (son of the 1st Earl of Clanwilliam); the house and its sole outbuilding were valued at £6.

Tufts continued to reside at this property until 1885 when David Knox, a local farmer and grocer, took possession of the site. In 1897 the value of the site was split when Knox let the western outbuilding out to William J. Hewitt who used the building as a dwelling for himself and his family; the outbuilding was valued at £1 10s. Whilst the house was revalued at £3.

In 1901 the census recorded that Knox (55, Presbyterian) resided in the townland of Tirkelly with his wife and grown children who assisted their father’s farm work. Similarly William John Hewitt (61, Presbyterian) resided in the single-storey dwelling with his wife and daughter and was engaged in small-scale linen manufacturing; Hewitt was a linen weaver whilst his daughter Agnes was employed as a seamstress.

The census building return described both the house and single-storey dwelling as 1st class dwellings; the house possessed eight rooms whilst Hewitt’s consisted of seven. Knox’s farmhouse possessed a number of farmbuildings including a stable, three cow houses, three piggeries, two fowl houses and a barn which were located to the rear of the house; Hewitt’s dwelling possessed a stable, cow house and a small barn as its sole out offices. The 1911 Census noted that David Knox possessed a grocer’s shop in the townland and that he had expanded his farm with the erection of an additional cow house and a boiling house.

In 1919 William J. Hewitt vacated the single-storey dwelling when David Knox Jnr. Took possession; the entire site passed to him upon his father’s death in 1925 and David Knox Jnr. Continued to be recorded as occupant of both dwellings by the end of the Annual Revisions in 1929.

No. 71 Drumarkin Road was listed in 1977 and continues to be occupied. The former single-storey outbuilding, and later dwelling, has fallen into a state of disrepair having lost its slate roof; the outbuilding which was constructed prior to 1976 has fallen into a similar state.

References

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/42/1 – First edition Ordnance Survey map 1833
2. PRONI OS/6/3/42/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey map 1859
3. PRONI OS/6/3/42/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey map 1901-1902
4. PRONI OS/6/3/42/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey map 1919-1920
5. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/59/A – Griffith’s Valuation 1862
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/24A – Annual Revisions 1864-1878
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/24B – Annual Revisions 1879-1889
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/24C – Annual Revisions 1889-1897
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/24D – Annual Revisions 1898-1911
10. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/24E – Annual Revisions 1912-1929
11. Ordnance Survey Memoirs, Co. Down I Vol. 3 (1836)
12. PRONI Wills (9 Mar 1925)
13. Census of Ireland (1901 / 1911)
14. First Survey Record – HB17/09/013 (1970)
15. Ordnance Survey map – 238-16 (1976)

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 long asymmetrical two-storey three-bay house. The house dates from the early to mid-nineteenth century and significant character survives externally. Although much internal fabric appears to have been lost, the plan survives and it is a good example of the type with its original garden setting.