16 Belfast Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached one-and-a-half-storey redbrick local authority house, built c.1910. Rectangular on plan facing south with single-storey modern rear extension. Set on an elevated site on the north side of Belfast Road, Glenavy within its own plot.

Pitched natural slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and a redbrick chimneystack to either gable end. Plastic rainwater goods to timber fascia and exposed timber rafter feet. Moulded timber bargeboard to gables with decorative carved brackets. Redbrick walling laid in English garden wall bond. Camber-headed brick-arched window openings with concrete sills and uPVC windows.

Single-storey front elevation abutted by gable-fronted entrance porch having moulded terracotta finial to the roof, uPVC window to the front and a camber-headed door opening to the west cheek with replacement hardwood glazed door.

West gable has a pair of window openings to the upper floor.

Rear elevation abutted by single-storey gable-ended redbrick extension, built c.1990.

East gable has two windows to the upper floor and a single slender window opening to the ground floor.

Setting:
Set on an elevated site on the north side of Belfast Road, Glenavy within its own plot. House set within lawned plot enclosed to the road by hedgerow with short gravel drive opening onto the road via pair of wrought-iron gates on iron posts.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Plastic
Walling Redbrick
Windows uPVC

Historical information

The Annual Revisions record that No. 16 Belfast Road, a two-storey redbrick local authority house, was constructed by Lisburn Rural District Council in 1916 on land belonging to a Ms. Sarah Armstrong. The house was valued at £1 10s. and was occupied by a Mr. John A Christie, who the census records indicate was an agricultural labourer who had resided in Glenavy since at least 1901 when he occupied a small thatched dwelling. Christie resided at No. 16 Belfast Road from c. 1916 until the end of the Annual Revisions in 1929. The fourth edition of the Ordnance Survey maps for Glenavy depict the dwelling as a small structure situated to the north-east outskirts of Glenavy Village along with two similar buildings which were presumably constructed at the same time. Although the Annual Revisions record that the dwelling was built c. 1916, it is possible that these three local authority houses were constructed earlier; in 1903 the Lisburn Standard recorded that the Lisburn Rural District Council were considering tenders from builders for the erection of labourer’s cottages in the townlands of Ballynadolly, Ballyvannon and Glenavy. Four cottages were to be constructed in Glenavy on land belonging to a Mr. Armstrong, however, it cannot be verified whether this source relates to the three dwellings on Glenavy’s Belfast Road.

The construction of public housing for small labourers and farmers throughout Ireland was made possible with the Labourer’s Acts, first passed in 1883, which allowed local authorities, such as the Lisburn Rural District Council, to construct over 50,000 new cottages for landless labourers with financial assistance from the state. The majority of these cottages were simple, functional dwellings which were constructed in the outskirts of major urban areas and villages. In the province of Ulster just under 10,000 such cottages were built or improved between the years 1891 and 1911, although construction of their type continued for some time after Partition (Aalen, pp 161-163). A former Local Authority House, No. 16 Belfast Road is exemplary of this type of labourer’s cottage and continues to be occupied; recent additions to the house include the construction of a two-storey rear return which was constructed c. 1990.

References

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/59/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1832-33
2. PRONI OS/6/1/59/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1858
3. PRONI OS/6/1/59/3 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1920-21
4. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/4A – Annual Revisions 1869-1881
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/4B – Annual Revisions 1881-1894
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/4C – Annual Revisions 1894-1911
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/4D – Annual Revisions 1912-1929
8. Census of Ireland 1901 / 1911
9. Lisburn Standard (1903)
10. Ordnance Survey map 145-2 (1991)

Secondary Sources

1. Aalen, F. H. A.; Whelan, K.; Stout, M., ‘Atlas of the Irish Rural Landscape’ Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Detached one-and-a-half-storey redbrick local authority house, built c.1910. Although this is a relatively intact example of early twentieth-century local authority housing, the removal of its original external features detract from its historic character and it does not meet the criteria for listing.