Barn by Kirkistown Castle

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Largely restored two storey gabled ‘barn’ situated at the SE corner of Kirkistown Castle bawn.

Front NE facade has two plain timber sheeted doors. To left of door at left is a small window opening which is currently boarded. Attached to wall to right of right hand side door is a small ‘extension’ with a mono pitched roof. There are two small sliding sash and case windows, with horizontal astragals, to the first floor.

Evidence of structural remedial work on NE facade (i.e three metal plates).

NE gable is entered at first floor level with stone steps leading to plain timber sheeted door.

SW gable and SE elevation (which is part of the actual bawn wall) are both blank.

Roof pitched with stone parapets and four cast iron skylights in roof to NE elevation. This building has largely been restored recently and is currently used as a site office and store for tools and equipment.

Historical information

This barn is shown on the OS map of 1834 and may have been built in the early years of the nineteenth century, at the same time as William Montgomery’s (attempted) renovation of Kirkistown Castle. Alternatively the barn may date from the early eighteenth century, the period when the then owner of the castle, Lucy McGill resided in ‘the good dwelling house’ built within the bawn, or even from c.1670, when Captain James McGill was improving the lands around the castle. The 1966 Archaeological Survey of County Down, however, classed the barn as ‘recent and modern’ (i.e. post 1800), yet said nothing else about it. The barn was renovated recently and is currently being used as a site office and store for the builders restoring the castle.

References- Primary sources
1 Montgomery’s MSS ‘History of the Ards’ (1683), p. 6-7. [Original MS in the Linenhall Library, Belfast].
2 Walter Harris 'The Ancient and Present State of The County of Down' (Dublin 1744), p. 67.
3 [?PRONI] Map (1767) used as front cover for successive editions of the 'Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society' (1977-97).
4 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st Edition, 1834, Co. Down 25.
5 PRONI VAL 1B/35 1st valuation, Ardkeen, c.1835.
6 Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), p. 2
7 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st revision, 1860, Co. Down 25.
8 PRONI 2nd valuation, Ardkeen, c.1863.

Secondary sources
1 G.F. Savage-Armstrong 'A genealogical history of the Savage family in Ulster, being a revision and enlargement of certain chapters of “The Savages of the Ards”' (London 1906), pp.335-36. [Savage-Armstrong remarks that according to local tradition the small house within the courtyard was the one in which Lucy McGill resided.]
2 'Archaeological Survey of County Down' (Belfast 1966), pp. 238-41.
3 Elizabeth J.C. Lyttle ‘Kirkistown Castle’ in 'Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society No.7' (1983), pp. 18-19
4 A.J. Hughes and R.J. Hannan 'Place-Names of Northern Ireland Vol. Two, County Down II- The Ards', pp. 15-16.
5 EHS SMR DOW 25:7.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Largely restored two storey, rubble-built, barn set within the bawn of Kirkistown Castle, now converted to a visitor centre with toilets on the ground floor.