Cottage

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A 1 ½- storey five-bay cottage predating c.1830; rectangular plan form with small rear extension. Located in the Clandeboye Estate, accessed from the Estate Road of Crawfordsburn Road, approximately ½ mile east of the Clandeboye Lodge Hotel complex.

Pitched natural slate roof with clay ridge tiles; plain timber fascia and barge boards; plain timber soffits and eaves brackets. Replacement uPVC rainwater goods; smooth rendered chimneys with overhanging coping and pots. Smooth cement rendered walling. Replacement timber casement windows with astragals; masonry rectangular cills. Replacement plain timber door; half-circle concrete step.

The principal elevation faces south west and is symmetrically arranged. Front door centrally located flanked by two ground floor windows either side; diminished 6 paned fixed upper floor window over door.

The left gable is asymmetrically arranged. One ground floor window to the left; two upper floor windows.

The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged. The right is abutted by a single-storey lean-to extension; artificial slate roof with roof light; the right cheek is blank; two windows to the front with a replacement timber door on the left cheek. Single ground floor window right of the extension. Two modern roof-lights to the rear roof pitch.

The right gable is a mirror-image of the left.

Setting:

The cottage is set within a small enclosed site bounded to the west and south by a hedge incorporating a mild-steel gate fixed to concrete piers. To the north and east are numerous timber and rubble sheds and outbuildings with associated animal enclosures; beyond which, with exception to the large modern extension to the Clandeboye Lodge Hotel, is a generally uninterrupted woodland and rural
setting.

Roofing: Natural slate
Walling: render
Windows: timber
RWG: uPVC

Historical information

The cottage first appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834 which depicts the house as an oblong building situated in the townland of Ballyleidy half a kilometre south of Clandeboye House. There was no change to the site by the second edition of the maps in 1858 and in 1861 Griffith’s Valuation records that the cottage formed part of the Ballyleidy (later Clandeboye) Estate although the dwelling did not possess a separate valuation at that time but was valued along with the house at £240. The cottage was first valued separately in 1894 when the Annual Revisions recorded it as a House and garden let by the Marquis of Dufferin (who was also noted as the occupant) and valued at £4 10s.

The cottage remained unoccupied until c. 1910 when a Mr. Henry Perry came into possession. The 1911 Census states that Perry (33), a Presbyterian farm labourer, resided at the cottage with his wife Matilda (31) and their four children. The Census Building Return describes the property as a 2nd class dwelling which consisted of eight rooms and possessed a small number of outbuildings including a cow house and a shed. The third edition of the Ordnance Survey maps (1900-02) records that the Clandeboye Estate’s kennels were constructed at the rear of the house between 1858 and 1900; the kennels are not recorded in either the Annual Revisions or the census of 1911, although it is likely that Henry Perry was charged with their keeping due to the close proximity of his house to the kennel structures. Henry Perry occupied the cottage until 1917 when the dwelling passed to a Mr. John Wilson who occupied the site until the end of the Annual revisions in 1923; there were no further changes to the cottage or its offices (which continued to be recorded as ‘kennels’) until the current edition of the Ordnance Survey map in 1968.

The cottage continues to be occupied and is still owned by the Clandeboye estate; a number of wooden animal enclosures to the rear of the dwelling indicate that its role of caretaking the estate’s kennels continued until recent years.

References:

Primary Sources

1.PRONI OS/6/3/2/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1833
2.PRONI OS/6/3/2/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey map 1858
3.PRONI OS/6/3/2/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1901
4.PRONI OS/6/3/2/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1919-26
5.PRONI OS/6/3/2/5 – Fifth Edition Ordnance Survey Map 1939
6.PRONI VAL/2/B/3/1B – Griffith’s Valuation 1861
7.PRONI VAL/12/B/23/8A – Annual Revisions 1894-1903
8.PRONI VAL/12/B/23/8A – Annual Revisions 1903-1913
9.PRONI VAL/12/B/23/8A – Annual Revisions 1914-1923
10.Census of Ireland 1901 / 1911
11.Ordnance Survey map 131-3 (1968)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A 1 ½- storey five-bay cottage predating c.1830. Externally its proportion and scale survive; however, the accumulation of changes to the individual elements has detracted significantly from its historic and architectural interest. While of local note as part of the Clandeboye Estate, it is not among the best examples of the type and has been compromised by various alterations and additions

General comments

This record has been renumbered from HB23/10/010 as part of the Clandeboye Estate group.