Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB24/02/048

Address :
’Rectory’, 8 Ballygelagh Road, Ardkeen, Kircubbin Newtownards Co. Down BT22 1JQ

Townland:
Ardkeen

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Survey 2:
Record Only

Date of Listing:

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
House

Former Use
Rectories/ Manses etc

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
187/12

IG Ref:
J6076 5678

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Owner Category

Private

Exterior Description And Setting

Two storey gabled house, ‘L’ shaped in plan form, much extended and recently renovated with modern windows, doors etc, situated off the Ballgelagh Road in pleasant wooded surroundings. Front S facade has central modern timber panelled door with two pane sidelights and segmental arch fanlight. Simple surround and keystone to door. Two pane PVC window to right and left of door with three, evenly spaced, similar windows to first floor. E gable blank. W gable has window to each floor at left and merges into long gabled return to rear which has collection of large modern windows and door. Rear of main house has two storey lean to ‘store’ extension, with collection of windows (as front of main house) to rear (E) of return. Main house finished in lined render with chamfered [?stone] quoins, return finished in rough cast render and painted. Roofs pitched with Bangor blue slates, four brick chimney stacks (two to gables of main house, two to return), with Velux windows to E side of return roof. PVC gutters and down spouts. Outbuildings within walled yard to rear.

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

This house is shown on the 1834 OS Map, much as today, marked ‘Glebe’, and described in the OS Memoirs as ‘a small plain house’, but the only gentlemen’s residence within the whole parish. It served as the rectory for the parish church of Ardkeen, on Castle Hill peninsula, a church of medieval origin which was restored by the Savage family in 1761, at which time this property may have been built also. The church itself was abandoned not long after the roof was blown off by the Great Wind of January 1839, and replaced by a new church in Kirkistown. When first surveyed in 1970, the property was part of ‘Fairbairn’s breeding and research farm’. The house appears to have been renovated on several occasions recently and little original detailing remains. References- Primary sources 1 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st Edition, 1834, Co. Down 25. 2 Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland Vol.7: Parishes of County Down II, ed. Angelique Day and Patrick McWilliams (QUB 1991), p.2. 3 PRONI VAL 1B/35 1st valuation, Ardkeen, c.1835. 4 PRONI Ordnance Survey Maps, 1st revision, 1860, Co. Down 25. 5 PRONI 2nd valuation, Ardkeen, c.1863. Secondary sources 1 G.F. Armstrong 'The Savage Family in Ulster' (London 1906), pp. 338-42. 2 Patrick Breen ‘The Castle Hill’ in 'Journal of the Upper Ards Historical Society No.7' (1983) pp. 11-14 .

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

Not listed

Historic Interest

Not listed

Evaluation

Large-ish two storey glebe house of c.1800 with large modernised return to rear.

General Comments

Date of Survey

24 September 1997