Horsepark

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached three-bay two-storey rendered former thatched house, built c.1680. Rectangular on plan facing south with a single-storey wing to either gable end and a gabled rear extension. Set on an elevated site to the north of Horse Park with a rear yard with a single outbuilding. East and west entrance with gravel driveway having a single-storey dwelling to the east drive and a rubblestone outbuilding.

Steeply pitched natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles and three rendered chimneystacks. Formerly thatched the original roof timbers have been retained below the new roof structure. Cast-iron guttering on iron drive-through brackets to rendered eaves course and cast-iron downpipes. Rough-cast rendered walling, smooth rendered plinth course and rendered rusticated soldier quoins to front elevation. Square-headed window openings with smooth render surrounds, concrete sills and replacement horizontally-glazed timber sash windows.

Front elevation is three windows wide with a central square-headed door opening having replacement hardwood door and sidelights. Former door opening to the westernmost bay with smooth rendered surround, now blocked up.

West gable abutted by single-storey wing, detailed as above. A single square-headed window opening to the upper floor of the west gable.

Rear elevation abutted by a single-storey gable-ended extension. Square-headed window openings of various sizes with replacement timber casement windows. Recessed square-headed door opening to the rear elevation with sheeted timber door.

East gable abutted by single-storey wing as per west gable.

Setting:
Set on an elevated site to the north of Horse Park with a rear yard with a single outbuilding. East and west entrance with gravel driveway having a single-storey dwelling to the east drive and a two-storey rubblestone outbuilding at the entrance to an additional modern yard. Both entrances have modern stone-faced circular piers with the eastern entrance having iron gates on cast-iron posts.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Cast-iron
Walling Rough-cast render
Windows Replacement timber sash

Historical information

Field inspection supports a seventeenth century date of construction; this two-storey vernacular farmhouse first appears on the Ordnance Survey map in 1832 when it is depicted as an oblong building situated in the townland of Ballyellough half a kilometre to the north-east of Brookhill house. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs (1837) tell us that Horsepark was originally a ground used by the occupant of an early 17th century castle at Brookhill to exercise his troop of horses. Little remains of this fortified Bawn which was constructed during the plantation and was located within the current gardens of Brookhill House (HB 19/03/064B-D). Brookhill house was constructed c. 1730 and by the period of the Ordnance Survey (1837) a number of buildings had been constructed at Horse Park (Ordnance Survey Memoirs Co. Antrim, VII, Vol. 21, p. 100).

The first and second editions of the Ordnance Survey maps (1832-1857) depict the dwelling as the westernmost of three buildings that stood by this time; the contemporary Griffith’s Valuation tells us that a Mr. Richard Dawson let the house from the Rev James Stannus (agent to the Marquis of Hertford) in 1859 at which time the building was valued at £2. Between 1863 and 1866 the house fell vacant when the property was recorded in the Annual Revisions as the property of the Marquis of Hertford. In 1870 the value of the dwelling was increased to £3 10s. and then £5, however it is not known what caused this increase. The house was reoccupied in 1878 by a Mr. James Cosgrave, a local farmer who occupied the house until his death in 1901. Cosgrave purchased Horsepark from the Marquis of Hertford in 1893 and resided there with his wife Sarah Jane and their five children. The 1901 census building return has not survived, however the out office return records that Horsepark possessed a large number of out offices including a stable, coach house, cow house, piggery, a boiling house and a barn which were housed in an outbuilding to the rear of the house (which still survives but is in a dilapidated condition). With Cosgrave’s death in 1901 the house and its outbuildings passed to his widow; however, Sarah Jane Cosgrave had vacated the house by 1912 when a Mr. Samuel Boyd came into possession, residing there until the end of the Annual Revisions for the area in 1923.

Horsepark was listed in 1981; the house was significantly altered c. 1985 when the thatched roof of the house was replaced with slate. The current owner reported to surveyors that the orginal thatch was not replaced at this time as it was difficult to source a thatcher. The First Survey record (1974) records that Horsepark possessed an entrance porch located to the west side of the front elevation; however this has been removed, the doorway blocked in, and the entrance moved to the centre of the elevation as part of the work carried out during the 1980s (NIEA File).

References

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/1/63/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey map 1832
2. PRONI OS/6/1/63/2 – First Edition Ordnance Survey map 1857
3. PRONI OS/6/1/63/3 – First Edition Ordnance Survey map 1900-01
4. PRONI OS/6/1/63/4 – First Edition Ordnance Survey map 1920-21
5. PRONI VAL/2/B/1/62B – Griffith’s Valuation 1859
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/6A – Annual Revisions 1863-1866
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/6B – Annual Revisions 1868-1881
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/6C – Annual Revisions 1881-1889
9. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/6D – Annual Revisions 1890-1904
10. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/6E – Annual Revisions 1905-1918
11. PRONI VAL/12/B/8/6F – Annual Revisions 1918-1923
12. Ordnance Survey Memoirs Co. Antrim, VII, Vol. 21
13. PRONI Wills Catalogue (1901)
14. Census of Ireland 1901 / 1911
15. NIEA File – HB1903008

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance
X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

Detached three-bay two-storey rendered former thatched house, built c.1680. An early vernacular farmhouse, which despite having lost its thatched roof and much of its internal detailing, retains its overall composition. The steeply pitched roof retains the original roof structure and together with its wall to window ratio, the house is of significant interest as a rare survivor from late 17th century. Located in Horsepark, the orignal horse ground for the neighbouring Brookhill estate (HB19/03/064A-D), it retains its original farmhouse function, its rural setting and is of local historic interest.

General comments

Listing Criteria R - Age, S - Authenticity and T- Historoc Importance also apply.