3 Tollumgrange Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached symmetrical two-storey three-bay rendered house, built c.1875, located at the east end of Tollumgrange Road. Rectangular plan with projecting single-storey gabled porch and two-storey flat-roofed rear extension (c.1930).

Pitched natural slate roof with clipped verges, angled clay ridge tiles and yellow brick gable chimneystacks with gauged brick caps and no pots. Half-round cast-iron rainwater goods. Walls are block-marked cement render with raised quoins. Windows are generally margin-paned 1/1 timber sliding sashes with horns, unless otherwise stated, all having painted stone sills with the exception of the extension, which has concrete sills. Ground floor windows have decorative nineteenth-century glazing to the margins, comprising blue, red and patterned glazing.

Principal elevation faces south and is symmetrically composed about central porch with aligned openings to each bay. Porch has window to south gable and six-panelled painted timber entrance door to west cheek having remains of cast-iron knocker and cast-iron knob; the east cheek is blank.

West gable has a single window to first floor left.

Rear elevation is abutted by the extension. The exposed section has a window at each floor to left and right bays. Extension has two replacement hardwood entrance doors to north elevation and two windows of differing sizes to first floor; the smaller window is a plain 1/1 sash window without margins; west cheek has a window at each floor and east cheek is blank.

East gable has two windows at first floor and is abutted by the framework for an external door separating the front garden and rear yard.

Set back from the road behind a mature garden with fruit trees to south-east corner, bounded by a schist rubble-stone wall with saddleback coping, accessed by wrought-iron pedestrian gate hung on cast-iron piers. Concrete farmyard to rear enclosed to three sides by outbuilding ranges, generally single storey with two-storey barn to north-west corner. All are slated, walls are a mix of schist rubble and in-situ cast concrete; generally without windows but having original painted timber sheeted stable doors throughout, some with red brick dressings; east range has been modified to the yard-facing elevation with semi-circular headed full-height windows and glazed timber doors. Reclaimed patent cast-iron windows inserted to north elevation of north range, lighting converted WC block. Barn has external steps formed in concrete, with timber stair gate at mid-level. Secondary farmyard to west, of little interest, having two Dutch barns and monopitched concrete outbuildings. Yards accessed from road via wrought-iron field gates with seven rails and nine stiles. Cast-iron cow tail water pump to rear of house. Late twentieth-century post box located at main gate. Former Ballyedock National School and St Mary’s Roman Catholic church (HB18/09/060) located immediately to east; former glebe house located opposite.

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

Historical information

The house is situated in the townland of Ballyedock Upper, to the west of St Mary's RC Chapel in the small settlement of Chapeltown. The first edition OS map of 1835 shows a rectangular building extant on the site, aligned along the roadside, with a perpendicular structure on the site of the current west outbuilding. By the time of the second edition map in 1862-3, this outbuilding has been extended to north, and the house also appears to have been enlarged, although not corresponding to the existing house. The third edition map of 1899-1904 shows that the current house has been constructed, although without the rear extension; the farmyard is also shown in its current form, although the perpendicular outbuilding is not shown, suggesting that it was demolished and later rebuilt. In the Townland Valuation it is not completely clear which entry the house corresponds to as there have been some amendments, but it is likely to be plot no.4, recorded as the house of Nugent Gilchrist, noted as ‘part built’, at 6.6ft high and valued at £2 5s 6d. All properties on this townland are recorded as exempt. Griffiths Valuation clearly records the occupier as Eugene Gilchrist, on land leased from Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk, with house, offices and land, having buildings valued at £5 5s, revised to £4 10s. There are a number of occupants named Gilchrist within the townland, and the same Eugene Gilchrist is shown to sublet several properties. The Valuation Revisions record a change in 1874, in which the value of buildings is raised to £5 10s, probably reflecting the building of the current property; at this time the owner also changes to Thomas Gilchrist. ‘New offices’ are recorded in 1887 and there is a further rise in valuation to £6 10s in 1889, suggesting additional improvements to the yard. The 1901 Census confirms this, recording the Head of the family as Thomas Gilchrist (72 years), living with his nephew Peter and niece Elizabeth, and a female servant named Alice Magorian. The accompanying Buildings Return records the property as a 1st class house with ten occupied rooms and thirteen out-offices; outbuildings are recorded as two stables, a coach house, three cow houses, one each calf house, dairy and piggery, one barn and one potato house. In 1903 the property passes to Peter Gilchrist, and is bought outright by the Gilchrist family, probably under the Land Acts, in 1912. The OS Memoirs note that the name Gilchrist is recorded as a ‘prevailing name’ in the parish, and is of Scottish origin. The same family remains in occupation today. In the latter half of the twentieth century the house accommodated a post office, which was operated from a room in the rear extension, having separate rear access. The former landowner, Aubrey de Vere Beauclerk (1840-1898), was 10th Duke of At Albans, and lived for a time at Ardglass Castle; he was a radical politician who was close friends and possibly intimately involved with the writer Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, creator of Frankenstein.

Primary Sources:
1. PRONI OS/6/3/38/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1834)
2. PRONI OS/6/3/38/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1859)
3. PRONI OS/6/3/38/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1900)
4. PRONI OS/6/3/38/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1922)
5. PRONI VAL/1/A/3/38 – Townland Valuation field map (1832)
6. PRONI VAL/1/B/371 – Townland Valuation field book
7. PRONI VAL/2/A/3/45B – Griffiths Valuation field map
8. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/73 – Griffiths Valuation field book (1861)
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/18/11A – Valuation Revision Book (1864-1876)
10. PRONI VAL/12/B/18/11B – Valuation Revision Book (1876-1884)
11. PRONI VAL/12/B/18/11C – Valuation Revision Book (1898-1911)
12. Day, A and McWilliams, P: OS Memoirs of Ireland: Parishes of County Down, Vol.17; Institute of Irish Studies, QUB, 1990

Online Sources:
1. 1901 Census: http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/pages/1901/Down/Dunsfort/Ballydock_Upper/1232625/

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance
X. Local Interest

Evaluation

3 Tollumgrange Road is a simple three-bay two-storey late nineteenth-century farmhouse with courtyard complex of farm buildngs to rear, prominently situated close to the road in the settlement of Chapeltown on Tollumgrange Road. The house is well-proportioned, symmetrically composed about a central porch, and is a good example of a late Victorian farmhouse. It retains good quality original features such as attractive margin-paned windows and salient internal fabric, including aspects of the original rear elevation retained within the later extension. The house is enhanced by retention of original boundary features in local stone, wrought-iron gates and the farmyard complex to rear, which has developed over the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries. The house is also of some social interest due to its status as the local post-office during the latter part of the twentieth-century, retaining the its distinctive red post box at the farm gate. The complex enhances the character of the rural settlement of Chapeltown, and is of local interest.

General comments

Within Lecale AONB