Survey Data
Reg No
40901235
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Technical
Original Use
House
In Use As
Outbuilding
Date
1830 - 1890
Coordinates
261012, 445137
Date Recorded
25/09/2008
Date Updated
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Description
Detached two-bay single-storey vernacular house, built c. 1860, with windbreak porch to front. Rounded pitched thatched roof with wire netting restraint and timber rope stays, and rendered chimneystacks to gables. Whitewashed random rubble walls. Square-headed window openings with two-over-two horned timber sash windows. Square-headed door opening with timber lintel and battened timber door. Attached two-bay single-storey outbuilding to south-east comprising of pitched corrugated-metal roof, and with whitewashed random rubble walls. Modern farmyard complex to south-east. north-west gable front directly onto road.
Appraisal
Although no longer inhabited, and now used as an outbuilding, this house retains its characteristic thatched roof and vernacular detailing and represents a good example of its type. Its deteriorating condition is unfortunate and with an increasing number of such dwellings presently unoccupied and derelict, what is currently an inventory rich in vernacular architectural heritage, is greatly threatened in Donegal. The rounded pitched roof is designed to minimise the impact of high winds, a subtle adaptation of more common thatch detail to accommodate local climatic conditions in exposed areas such as the Inishowen peninsula. A small unnamed settlement is shown on the site on the Ordnance Survey first edition six-inch map of c. 1837, but this house appears to be later.