35 Thorny Hill Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Largely original, single storey thatched house of 1784 set on a bank on the NW side of the Thornyhill Road, just over 1 mile SW of the village of Killinchy.
Front S facade has a right of centre doorway panelled door, four pane sidelights and elliptical arch fanlight with ‘radial’ tracery. To the left of the doorway are three (unevenly spaced) sash windows with Georgian panes (8 over 8), with a similar window to the right of the door. There is a small panel to the left of the doorway which is inscribed ‘BT BY JAMES ANDERSON A:D: 1784’.
The E gable has a small off centre sash window at attic level, with a large sash window (with horizontal astragals) to the right on the ground floor. This gable merges with the E face of a long, single storey, rear lean to section, which has a sash windows with horizontal astragals.
The W gable has a small sash window to the left of centre on the ground floor, with a modern casement window to the W face of the rear lean to.
The rear lean to itself stretches across the entire rear facade with a timber sheeted door to the left of centre, a modern casement window to the left of this. To the right of the door are two more casement windows, then a narrower window with small hopper opener, then another casement window. The western section of the rear lean appears to have been added recently and the pitch of its roof is slightly shallower than the rest.
The entire facade is finished in rough cast and painted white. The main roof is thatched (flax) with three rendered chimney stacks and stone (rendered) parapets. The lean two section has Bangor blue slates and PVC rw goods.
Large collection of rubble outbuildings to W and S (which appear to be contemporary with the house). The outbuilding to the S contains remnants of grain chutes. To the E of this building is a single storey extension which contains a ‘boiling house’ and a small room with a double seater dry closet.
Rendered wall to roadside in front of house with simply decorated (Victorian looking) wrought iron gate.

This house is a fine example of an eighteenth century single storey vernacular dwelling, which though altered slightly at various times (the doorway may be c.1840 and the rear extension may be largely late Victorian or early 1900s), has largely retained its overall form, internal layout and thatched roof.

Historical information

As its date stone states, this house was built in 1784 by one James Anderson. The construction suggests, however, that there were two stages of building, the original dwelling of 1784 the symmetrical three openings-wide section to the east, with the structural bay to the west and the rear lean-to added later. The dimensions given in the first valuation of 1835, 55ft x 19 x 8, with an addition of 28 x 8 x 5, show that apart from roughly half of the present lean-to, the house as we see it today was already in place by that date. As the valuers grade both the main house and the ‘addition’ with the quality letter B+, it is probable that the enlarging of the property may have been carried out sometime prior to 1815, perhaps c.1810. The overtly late Georgian style of the door case suggests it may have been altered around the same time as well.

The occupant recorded in the first valuation is another James Anderson, doubtless a relation of that of 1784, with the rateable value of the property, (which also included a single-storey barn, ‘car’ house, fowl house, piggeries and a one and a half to two-storey ‘store’), a respectable £5-9-0. A James Anderson is listed as the occupant in the second valuation of 1861, with James Cleland the immediate lessor, and the rateable value £8.

Internally, some of the detailing appears to have been altered in the later 19th century and the rear lean-to was extended c.1980.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI D.2005/2/1-25 Lowry family papers- Deeds to lands in Ballymacreelly, Co. Down (1743-1910)
2 PRONI VAL/1A/3/16 OS map, County Down sheet 16, with valuation
references, (1834-c.38)
3 PRONI VAL/1B/335 First valuation, Killinchy (c.1835)
4 PRONI VAL/2A/3/16C Revised OS map, County Down sheet 16, with valuation references, (1858 / 60-c.61)
5 PRONI VAL/2B/3/33 Second valuation, Killinchy (1861)

Secondary sources
1 ‘Archaeological Survey of County Down’ (Belfast, HMSO, 1966), p.389
2 Pierce, Richard, Cooey, Alistair and Oram, Richard, ‘Taken for Granted…’ (Belfast, 1984), p.74
3 Information supplied by the owner (August 1998)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

Largely original , single storey thatched house of 1784 set on a bank on the NW side of the Thorneyhill Road, just over 1 mile SW of the village of Killinchy.It is extended slightly at the rear and has a few (interior) hints of late Victorian alteration, but otherwise is still a good example of a simple vernacular farmhouse.