11 Drumhirk Way

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Much extended and somewhat ‘modernised’ single storey house which may possibly be a former school house. The house is set on the S side of Drumhirk Way, (a narrow road to the E of the Bangor Road), c.2 miles N of Newtownards.

Front N facade has a right of centre large, glazed, flat roofed porch, which covers the original elliptical arch headed doorway. To the right of this is a window with a PVC frame. To the left of the porch is a similar window. To the left of this is a projecting gabled section with a PVC window to the gable. A flat roofed extension has been added to the E face of this projection which has a PVC door to its N face. To the E face of this extension are two PVC windows of varying size.

The main E gable has three PVC windows to the ground floor and two small attic windows.

To the left at the rear is a large flat roofed extension with modern windows. To the rear of the main house is a PVC door with two PVC windows to the right.

The main W gable has two PVC windows.

The entire facade is finished in rough cast. The main roof is gabled and covered in Bangor blue slates with two rendered chimney stacks (to each main gable). PVC rw goods.

Historical information

Drumhirk Way, on the south side of which this house is sited, does not appear on the OS maps of 1834 or on that of 1858-60. Therefore it is difficult to get one’s bearings as it were, and difficult to find out whether a building existed on this site or not. There seems to be a building on this site on both maps (in so far as the writers can tell from sight alone), marked ‘National School House’. The OS memoirs (c.1832-7) mention a school house in Drumhirk and the valuation records (c.1835) state that the school in question was one of those established by the Kildare Street Society and that the building itself included a ‘school master’s dwelling’.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI OS Maps 1st ed. 1834, Co. Down 6.
2 PRONI VAL 1B/34 p.151 1st valuation Newtownards parish, Drumhirk Td., c.1836.
3 PRONI OS Maps 1st rev. 1858-60, Co. Down 6.
4 Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), p. 105.
5 PRONI 2nd (‘Griffith’s’) valuation, Newtownards parish, Drumhirk, c.1863.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Plain and somewhat awkward looking single storey house now with several large flat roofed extensions to the front and rear, and PVC windows throughout. The original sections of this house have something of a planned appearance and the original 1834 OS map of the area suggests that the building was once a school house.