Survey Data
Reg No
13402731
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural
Original Use
House
In Use As
House
Date
1860 - 1900
Coordinates
221792, 253830
Date Recorded
27/07/2005
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three-bay two-storey farmhouse, built c. 1880, now disused. Hipped natural slate roof with a pair of central rendered chimneystacks and cast-iron rainwater goods. Painted pebbledashed walls over smooth rendered plinth. Square-headed window openings with cut limestone sills, diminishing one-over-one pane timber sliding sash windows and smooth rendered reveals. Central segmental-headed door opening with smooth rendered reveal, timber panelled door and overlight. Set back from road in own grounds to the southeast of Ballymahon, close to the border with County Westmeath. Detached multiple-bay single-storey outbuilding attached to rear having pitched corrugated-metal roof, smooth cement rendered walls and square-headed openings. Gateway to the north comprising a pair of rendered gate piers (on square-plan) having a wrought-iron flat bar gate. Roughcast rendered boundary walls to road-frontage to the north. Gateway to front of house comprising a wrought-iron gate having cast-iron gate posts. Wrought-iron flat bar gates to rear.
Appraisal
This modest but well-proportioned farmhouse retains its early form and character. It also retains all its early fabric including timber sash windows, timber panelled door and a natural slate roof. The form of this building suggests that it is a vernacular interpretation of the typical three-bay two-storey house with muted classical pretensions, examples of which are a feature of the rural Irish countryside. The shallow segmental-headed profile of the door, and the form of the fittings to the openings, suggests that it dates to the late-nineteenth century or, perhaps, the first decades of the twentieth century. It is a late example of the enduring popularity of the three-bay two-storey house with central doorway in rural Ireland, examples of which date from the mid-eighteenth century. Buildings of this type were, until recently, a feature of the rural Irish countryside but it is rare to come across an intact example as this building at Ballyclamay, which makes this an interesting survival. This building is a modest addition to the built heritage of the local area, and it is a pleasant addition to the rural landscape to the southeast of Ballymahon. The simple wrought-iron gates add to the context and complete this unassuming composition. This dwelling replaced at earlier house to site (Ordnance Survey first edition six-inch map 1838).