Rock Cottage

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A one and a half storey house facing east and occupying an elevated site alongside the road from Toome to Ballymena about three-quarters of a mile north of the former village. A flight of steps gives access from the road, and a new vehicle entrance has been formed at the south side of the property.
The walls are roughcast and whitened. The hipped roof is covered with thatch. There are two corbelled chimneystacks, each with two Victorian style pots, over the positions of the original hearths.
The entrance, centrally placed on the front elevation, contains a four-panelled bolection moulded door, with side and quarter lights, and a rectangular fanlight. The lower sections are timber panelled to match the door, and glazing is by means of reeded glass. The raised entrance step is made up of medium sized tiles.
A small modern interpretation of a coach lamp appears on the wall surface on either side of the door.
There is a vertically sliding window on either side of the entrance containing margined paned sashes with exposed framing and with moulded sash stops. The sills that are of average depth are painted in a contrasting shade of black to match the colour of the reveals.
The left-hand (south) gable has a timber-framed casement window, with top opener, at low level, and a small plain square casement window above. The right hand (north) gable has a rhomboid-shaped timber window at lower level containing an intricately patterned arrangement of astragals.
The building extends at the rear in single and two-storey form. The two-storey section is roofed with natural slate, and rainwater goods are of cast iron. Fenestration is by three timber-framed casements, with top openers, and the rear entrance door on the north elevation is of the flush type and contains a glazed panel.
To the left the exposed rear wall of the main house has a window, similar to those at the front at low level, and a small square casement above.
To the right of the two storey section the single storey kitchen extension is roofed by fibre cement slates, rainwater goods are of cast metal, and the two windows are of modern timber framing.

Historical information

A house matching the present is shown on this site on the OS map of 1832, but not included in the near contemporary valuation. The building is marked as ‘Rock Cottage’ on the revised Os map of 1857, (on account the nearby rock outcrop), and recorded in the second valuation of 1859, when it leased by Daniel McKeown from the O’Neill Estate and rated at £4.

Though the age of the cottage is uncertain, a
‘Cottage at Brecart…on the north-east side of the Bann…near Brecart Tower…erected about 50 years ago by John O’Neill Esq…[now occupied] by Samuel Finiston’
is mentioned in the OS Memoirs of 1837, which C.E.B. Brett, for one, believes ‘must surely be’ a reference to this house. This description, however, actually refers to ‘Brecart Cottage’ [the Memoirs actually tell us this!], which was situated close to the site of the present Brecart House, a short distance east of this property, and which is recorded in the 1836 valuation as the home of Edward and Samuel Finiston. Brett also says that Daniel McKeown (see above) was occupying Rock Cottage in 1839 and that it was then valued at £2-10-0; judging from the evidence of the second valuation it would appear that this statement, at least, is indeed bona-fide reference to the property, however the source of the information is not given.

The windows to the front of the house (amongst other things) suggests work was carried out to the property in the 1860s.

Brett states that the present owner acquired the house in 1932, but that the rear extension was added some time before this by a family named Devlin.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/1A/1/42 OS map, County Antrim sheet 42, with valuation
references (1832-c.38)
2 ‘Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland…vol.19’ ed Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB, 1993), p.117 (1837)
2 PRONI VAL/2A/1/42B OS map, County Antrim sheet 42, with valuation references (1857-c.59)
3 PRONI VAL/2B/1/72B Second valuation, Duneane (1859)

Secondary sources
1 Brett, C.E.B., ‘The Buildings of County Antrim’ (Belfast, 1996), pp.216-17 [Brett also mentions the similarity between a window on the east wall of this house and the windows of the ‘nearby but now disappeared “Raymond Cottage”, built by Henrietta Frances O’Neill, wife of the Hon. John O’Neill, about 1777, and shown on a water-colour by John Johnstone reproduced in “Lost Demesnes”’.]

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

W. Northern Ireland/International Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

A one and a half storey house facing east and occupying an elevated site alongside the road from Toome to Ballymena about three-quarters of a mile north of Toome. The house is unusual by reason of the hipped thatch roof construction that uses a straw bedding below the thatch covering. It is of mid 19th. C construction.
The formal layout of the original building is of interest and the extensions integrate reasonably well.