2 Crossgar Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Two storey, hipped roof, typically Victorian Methodist manse house of 1880-81, with arched window openings to front. The building is set at the E end of Crossgar Road, NE of Ballynahinch town centre.

The front façade faces SW and is symmetrical. To ground floor centre is a flat roofed porch with a panelled entrance door to its SE face. The doorway has a simple moulded surround. To the SW face there is a semicircular headed window opening with moulded surround and plain sash frame. Either side of the porch (to the main façade) there are a pair of windows, as porch. To the first floor are three windows, much as before only smaller and with segmental heads.

The NW façade is blank.

The SE façade has a window to the right to the ground floor and to the first floor, both are as first floor front but that to the ground floor is taller. This façade merges with the SE face of a two storey rear return which has a large modern window to the ground floor and two smaller windows to the first floor, all with PVC frames. The NW face of the return is blank.

The rear elevation of the property consists of the return to the left (see below), a full height lean-to to the right of this, and the rear façade of the main building to the right again. The lean-to has a partly glazed stable door to the ground floor and a large modern window with PVC frame to the first floor. The rear façade of the main building has a window to the ground floor with segmental head and sash frame with vertical glazing bars 2 panes over two and a similar, smaller window to the first floor with plain sash frame.

Attached to the gable of the return is an outbuilding with an elliptical carriage arch cut through which affords access to the rear yard. Located to the left hand side of the arch to the NW face of the outbuilding is a door which is timber sheeted with a small glazed panel and an upper level loft door also of sheeted timber. A garage with mono-pitched roof is attached to the SE face of the outbuilding. This garage also covers the NE gable in lean-to fashion.

The front façade, NW and SE facades are finished in rusticated render at ground floor level with lined render with chamfered quoin detailing. The rear façade, lean-to, return and outbuilding are finished in lined render. The porch is topped with a cornice and blocking course. All buildings are painted.

The main roof is hipped and covered in natural slate with slight overhang and a bracketed eaves course to front, NW and SE. Two tall rendered chimney stacks to the centre. The return roof is mainly gabled, but appears to have a flat section where its intersects with the main house. The gabled section of the roof is also covered in natural slate as is that of the outbuilding. Cast iron rw goods.

Historical information

This house was built as the manse for the local Methodist church in 1880-81 at a cost of £600. In the [mid] 1900s it was sold to the Reid family and then, in the 1980s, to the Kennedy family. The present owner acquired the property in 1998.

The ground floor of the rear return probably originally have housed the pantry and a utility room, but has been largely amalgamated with the main house (since the 1970s at least).

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D.1255 Title deeds, legal and testamentary papers, correspondence and Irish Land Commissioners Papers re the Ballynahinch Estate, 1630-1940.
2 PRONI and Linen Hall Library ‘Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory’ Vols.1-21, 1852-1900, (Belfast, Henderson [1852-65], Belfast News-Letter [1865- ]).
3 PRONI VAL/12E/83/1 Valuation town plans, Ballynahinch, 1864-1905.
4 George Henry Bassett ‘County Down Guide and Directory’ (Dublin 1886), pp.369-379.
5 PRONI VAL/12E/83/2 Valuation town plans, Ballynahinch, 1905-35.
6 PRONI OS/8/3/2 OS town plan of Ballynahinch, 1920.
7 PRONI VAL/3G/59/1 Valuation town plans, Ballynahinch, 1937-53.

Secondary sources
1 S. McCullough ‘Ballynahinch: centre of Down’ (Ballynahinch Chamber of Commerce 1968).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Two storey, hipped roof, typically Victorian Methodist manse house of 1880-81, with arched window openings to front. To the rear there is a full height return which appears to have witnessed some alteration in recent times.