Survey Data
Reg No
41401820
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Social, Technical
Original Use
House
In Use As
House
Date
1835 - 1860
Coordinates
264723, 322450
Date Recorded
29/04/2012
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three-bay two-storey house, built c.1840, with single-storey return with attic to rear having further single-storey addition to rear of latter, and with two-bay two-storey former post office to north-east end. Now in private residential use. Pitched natural slate roof, with rendered chimneystacks, recent roof-lights to rear, clay ridge tiles, paired moulded brackets to eaves, and cast-iron rainwater goods. Smooth rendered walls, with incised string course to eaves, chamfered plinth course, and render vermiculated block-and-start quoins to corners of house and plain rendered quoins to west end of shop. Square-headed window openings to front (south-east) elevation, having six-over-six pane timber sliding sash windows, with moulded bull-nosed label-mouldings having marigold motif to stops, and with vermiculated keystones. Square-headed door opening to front elevation of house, having raised-and-fielded panelled timber door, with over-light, set in moulded render door frame with vermiculated keystone. 'Swanns Cross Roads' painted to ground floor of shop. Timber shopfront having fluted carved consoles to square-plan pilasters on plinths, with timber fascia bearing lettering 'W. SLOAN'. Replacement double-leaf door to shop, with plain over-light. Shop-window infilled and rendered, with square-headed window opening having six-over-six pane timber sliding sash window. Cast-iron lettering 'SWANN' forming railing, with fleur-de-lys finials, to sill level of former shop window. Recent slate cladding to south-west gable of house. Single-storey outbuildings to north-east, having hipped slate roof with clay ridge tiles, coursed rubble walls, red brick door and window surrounds to camber and square-headed openings with some timber fittings. Brick wall with pedestrian and vehicular entrance to rear, flanked by square-plan rendered brick piers. Replacement rubble stone wall, with steel railings to garden to front. Located at Swans Cross, former crossroads, now roundabout.
Appraisal
This aesthetically-pleasing building, formerly known as 'Swanns' and 'W. Sloan' functioned as the local post office and shop in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is likely to have had a licensed premises, thus serving a number of important social functions for the local rural area. The symmetrical façade of the house is articulated by the margins and moulded surrounds of the windows and doors, and the former shop-front of Sloan's gives context to the former post office at this prominent intersection of the Ballybay to Newbliss, and Rockcorry to Monaghan roads. The railing to the shop window, composed of lettering, is an unusual and attractive feature. The attractive and rare example of slate hanging adds to the building's interest. The buildings formerly stood on 'Swan's Cross Roads' on the 1908 Ordnance Survey map but are now set back, with a roundabout to the south. The cross was named after the family associated with the post office at the turn of the twentieth century, indicating the important social role this building played in this rural community.