4 Meeting House Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A one and a half storey, three bay, thatched house now with a central hallway but retaining the original lobby entry at the east end.

The rear of the house faces the main road overlooking a lawn with trees and bushes.

The front elevation, orientated to the south, has a grassed area at the front and another at the side. A concrete covered yard on the opposite side is enclosed by pitched roofed outbuildings.

The site is accessed from the Moira roundabout/Glenavy road by turning to the east at Upper Ballinderry and proceeding for a mile before making a turn to the north. The house is located a further half-mile on the right-hand side.

The external finish is of limestone chips with a recessed base.

The thatch covering is contained within tiled parapets and each gable rises to a corbelled red brick chimney each with one pot. There are three rows of exposed scollops at the ridge and one at the eaves. The ridge is of the wrap-over variety and the eaves are cut at an angle.

All of the windows in the main house are vertically sliding and plain sashed with bevelled sash stops. The openings are dressed with slightly raised surrounds, lightly moulded at the bottoms at the front, and with sills of traditional depths.

The entrance with four facetted panels and bolection mouldings has a plain fanlight. It is set in a plain surround that terminates in door blocks.

To the left (west) of the entrance there are two windows and to the right there is one window and a sheeted door in the position of the original entrance also in a plain surround but without door blocks.
Beyond this there occurs a single storey pitched roof annex lighted by a top-hung window. The roof covering is of cement fibre slates finished at the gable by means of a timber bargeboard and the rainwater goods are of plastic.

There are four windows at the rear. The second from the right (west) is raised to accommodate the staircase landing. There is a pair of similar windows, but of reduced dimensions, in either gable.

Historical information

A house matching the present is shown on this site on the OS map of 1832 / 33, along with the L-shaped outbuilding to the east. The valuation of 1834 records the house as a relatively old thatched building in good condition, (quality letter ‘2B+’), measuring 44ft x 21½ x 11½, with an addition of 10½ x 10½ x 6, offices, partly thatched partly slated, of 61 x 18½ x 6 and 24½ x 18½ x 14 (the latter recently added), a thatched barn of 45 x 18 x 6, a thatched potato house of 23½ x 19½ x 6 and a ‘new cart house’ of 16½ x 19½ x 6 (also thatched). The valuers describe the whole concern, then occupied by a John Tuft, as ‘neat’, with the rateable value calculated at a respectable £7-4-0.

The second valuation of 1859 repeats the findings of 1834, however by this stage the rateable value had fallen to £6. John Tuft was followed as resident by Edward Tuft, who acquired the freehold from the Wallace Estate in 1894. A descendant of Edward still holds the house to this day. No major alterations to the house are recorded in the post 1864 valuations.

Like many other thatched houses of this size it is difficult to trace the history of this property beyond the valuation records. It is clear that the house was built long before the valuers visited in 1834, however, how long is uncertain. Dr Alan Gailey, who studied the construction of the house in 1982-83, stated that he believed the butt purlin roof construction was indicative of the 17th-century (sometime between 1660 and 1690), but that the house remodelled in the second quarter of the 18th-century to provide the present formal layout.

Although applications were made to replace the thatch with a slate covering in 1982, these were refused, and re-thatching by Gerry Agnew using wheat straw was carried out the following year. Minor repairs to the roof timbers were undertaken in 1986; further repairs, including patching to the thatch using rye and flax, were completed by Brian Rogers (of Sligo) in 1992-93. Gerry Agnew undertook further repairs in 1995 and carried out a complete re-thatch, (using flax), in 1997.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/1A/1/63 OS map, County Antrim sheet 63, with valuation
references (1832 / 33-c.38)
2 PRONI VAL/1B/167 First valuation, Ballinderry (1834)
3 PRONI VAL/2A/1/63C OS map, County Antrim sheet 63, with valuation references (1857-c.59)
4 PRONI VAL/2B/1/55A Second valuation, Ballinderry (1859)
5 PRONI VAL/12B/8/8A-E Annual valuation revision books, Legatirriff ED (1864-1929)

Other references

Letters and reports in EHS file since date of listing.
Dr Gailey’s opinion in 1982 was that this house is among the top thirty-five in Northern Ireland.
Secondary Sources

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

W. Northern Ireland/International Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

This house is south facing, overlooking the main road across a lawn. It is east of the road that runs from the Moira roundabout towards Glenavy about a mile and a half from Upper Ballinderry. It is a one and a half storey, three bay thatched house now with a central hallway but retaining the original lobby entry at the east end. The retention of the form of the original lobby layout and the position of the gable hearth together with the two early forms of roof construction are very important. Documentary evidence shows the house as beung there in the early 19th. C but it could be much older, the original structure possibly being 17th. C.