42 Belfast Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey, three-bay farmhouse with outbuildings erected c.1850, including additional bay c.1940. Located directly off the Belfast Road, 1.5 miles east of Glenavy village.

Pitched natural slate roof with clay ridge tiles; hipped rolled-lead roof over canted bay. Timber barge boards to gable ends. uPVC replacement rainwater goods. Rendered brick chimneys; one remaining terracotta pot. Dry-dashed render with smooth bands, plinth course and surrounds to openings. 2/2 timber sliding sash with horns; horizontal glazing bars; painted stone cills. Replacement front plain timber door.

The principal elevation faces south and is asymmetrically arranged. Gable ended front porch located left of centre; smooth rendered; windows to the east & south face and door to west. Ground and first floor windows uniformly arranged; four windows wide to the left hand side; single canted bay on the later right bay.

The left gable is blank with decorative rendering to the gable head; chimney rising from gable apex.

The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged. Centrally located gabled rear porch; window to north face and door to the east face. Porch flanked by irregularly arranged ground and first floor windows; largely replaced or altered. The left bay is abutted by a former stable block with hay loft over.

The right gable has two ground floor windows; detailing matches left gable.

Setting:

Adjacent to a road on the south side and largely surrounded by historic and modern agricultural buildings to the west and north; beyond which lies rural landscape. Modern detached house located nearby to the east.

Roofing: Natural slate
Walling: Dry-dash/rendered
Windows: Timber sliding sash
RWG: uPVC

Historical information

The parish of Glenavy comprises a low-lying productive agricultural area to the east of Lough Neagh, with the upper part of the parish giving way to hilly pasture. (Parliamentary Gazetteer, p.264) The area where the current house is situated is shown on the second edition OS map of 1858 as dotted with cottages and farmsteads and has remained largely agricultural up to the present day with only a marginal increase in the amount of development. The current house is sited within the best arable land in the district, lying between the 100 foot and 300 foot contours, the land below 100 feet being liable to flooding in winter and that above 300 feet running to pasture, furze and rough grazing. (Ulster Folklife Society)

The house, together with barn to the rear and small outbuilding to the west, is first shown on the second edition OS map of 1858. Griffith’s Valuation (1862) lists the occupier as Samuel Bryans. The farm is leased from local landowner the Marquess of Hertford and buildings are valued at £5. Bryans leases over 22 acres of land with the house and is also the occupier of additional plots of land elsewhere in the townland. Samuel Bryans died in 1868 and left the farm to his son William, bequeathing ‘the under part of the lower room of my dwelling house to my wife Isabella Bryans for her life...the said room fall[ing] to my son William I Bryans at the death of his mother’. (Will of Samuel Bryans) In the Belfast Newsletter of February 11th 1885 the farm was advertised for sale by auction and it was noted that ‘There is a good Two-Storey House on the Property, and the Lands are of prime quality, with an ample supply of water’. (Belfast Newsletter)

By the time of the third edition of 1901-2, further outbuildings have been added to the plot including a single-storey barn to the west of the house (still present).

The present owner recalls that the house was of a whitewashed vernacular appearance until c1940 when it underwent renovations. It is thought that a bay to the east was also added at this time. (Owner information)

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/59/1 – First Edition OS Map 1832-3
2. PRONI OS/6/1/59/2 – Second Edition OS map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/1/59/3 – Third Edition OS Map 1901-02
4. PRONI OS/6/1/59/4 – Fourth Edition OS Map 1920-21
5. PRONI Will of Samuel Bryans, died 22nd June 1868
6. Griffith’s Valuation online
7. Belfast Newsletter, 11th February, 1885

Secondary Sources

1. “Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland” Dublin, London & Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co, 1846
2. Ulster Folklife Society “Field Excursions in Ulster, Ballinderry and district, County Antrim” Holywood: Ulster Folk and Transport Museum, 1982

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A two-storey, three-bay farmhouse with outbuilding erected c.1850, largely modified and extended c.1940. The overall proportions and scale suggest a house of vernacular origins; however in its present form, it is now largely characterized by early 20th century alterations. Although interesting as an example of an enlarged traditional farmhouse there are better examples listed in the area.