Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB17/10/009

Address :
Ballyward House 2 Castlewellan Road Ballyward Castlewellan Co Down BT31 9RL

Townland:
Ballyward

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Survey 2:
B1

Date of Listing:
02/04/2014 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
House

Former Use
Post Office

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
239-11

IG Ref:
J2766 3824

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Owner Category

Private

Exterior Description And Setting

Detached symmetrical three-bay two-storey rendered early-nineteenth century house, with two-storey return, formerly a shop and post-office. Skewed L-shaped on plan facing south and located on a corner site opposite Dromgooland Parish Church with front railed garden, extensive gardens to the east and a two-storey derelict coach-house to the north. Pitched natural slate roof with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles and three rendered profiled chimneystacks with octagonal clay pots rising from all gables. Replacement plastic guttering to rendered eaves course. Painted ruled-and-lined rendered walling. Square-headed window openings with granite sills and horizontally-glazed timber sash windows with exposed sash boxes. Symmetrical three-bay two-storey front elevation having a central fixed stair hall window with coloured glass margin lights and 2/2 timber sash windows to remainder. Three-centred arched door opening with moulded archivolt rising from moulded render pilasters. Tripartite timber doorcase with four panelled door having bolection mouldings, brass furniture and flanked by fixed pane etched glass sidelights in turn flanked by slender scribed pilasters. Plain lintel cornice and tripartite fanlight over. Door opens onto replacement tiled front area within front garden. West gable is set at an obtuse angle to the façade with the return continuing by a further two bays. Horizontally-glazed 1/2 timber sash windows to gable and return with an enlarged square-headed former shop display window having a replacement central window flanked by tripartite arch-headed fixed-pane windows. Rear elevation abutted by two-storey return with a central stair hall window, as per front elevation and flat-roofed porch to the re-entrant angle. East gable has a single off-centre window opening at first floor level with horizontally-glazed 2/2 timber sash window. At ground floor level is a square-headed door opening with replacement timber glazed door opening onto a concrete step and granite flagstone. Setting Located on a corner site on the north side of Ballyward Road and to the east of Station Road overlooked by Drumgooland Parish Church to the west (HB17/10/008). Geometric clay tiled footpath to front garden enclosed by wrought-iron railings extending across the west side elevations. Derelict roofless rubblestone former coach-house located along Station Road having elliptical-headed brick arched openings and a loading bay to the south gable. Between the south gable of the coach-house and the rear gable of the return is a vehicular opening with timber gates providing access to the rear yard and landscaped gardens to the east. To the rear of the house is a diminutive single-storey rendered structure reputed to be a former bath-house having pitched natural slate roof. Roof Natural slate Walling Painted render Windows Timber RWG uPVC

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

A house and return, with outbuilding to the rear, is shown on the first edition OS map of 1834 and this corresponds to the building that is found on the site today. By the second edition of 1859 the outbuilding (still present, but derelict) to the rear had been extended. James Carson is listed as the occupier in the Townland Valuation of 1828-40 and dimensions are given for a slated house and single-storey thatched outbuilding. Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64) lists the property as a post office and grocery run by Thomas, James and Alexander Carson and leased from Francis Charles Leslie. The buildings are valued at £9 and are considered ‘first rate’. Dimensions are given for a two-storey house (similar to those given in the Townland Valuation), single-storey thatched return and two outbuildings, one thatched. In 1874 the valuation was raised to £16 when additions/remodelling took place including rebuilding the rear return with an extra storey. In 1875, most likely following an appeal the valuation was dropped to £15. Further drops in valuation took place in 1878 and 1882 when the valuer remarked that the property was an ‘old house remodelled’. The Carson family took over the shop in 1887, but in 1895 the valuation was reduced because the shop had been ‘given up’. James Carson died on 5th February 1895 and in 1901 the census records farmer Alexander Carson present in the house with his wife Sarah, daughter Elizabeth and their servant Rose Ann, a 16-year-old general domestic. The house is designated 2nd class and has four rooms. Alexander Carson died on 4th April 1908, a relatively wealthy man leaving a fortune of nearly £6,000. His widow Sarah Carson remained in the house with her daughter. Staying with the pair at the time of the 1911 census were a married couple, a commission provision agent and his wife. The census designates the house first class and it is said to have 7 rooms. Listed in a 1918 directory as a farmer of Castlewellan, Sarah Carson died on 2nd July 1920, leaving everything to her daughter Elizabeth who then took over the house. In the 1930s the rear return of the house was again in use as a shop and was also the local post office, but the post office transferred to other premises nearby in 1954 and the shop closed. The accommodation in the house comprised on the ground floor a reception, a kitchen with range, scullery and pantry and on the first floor four bedrooms, a bathroom and WC. References: Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/3/42/1 First Edition OS Map 1834 2. PRONI OS/6/3/42/2 Second Edition OS map 1859 3. PRONI OS/6/3/42/3 Third Edition OS Map 1901-2 4. PRONI OS/6/3/42/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1919-20 5. PRONI VAL/1/B/350 Townland Valuation (1828-40) 6. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/51C Griffith’s Valuation (1863) 7. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/5A-F Annual Revisions (1864-1930) 8. PRONI VAL/3/C/4/1 First General Revaluation (1933-57) 9. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/3/D/3 First General Revaluation (1933-57) 10. PRONI Will of Alexander Carson, died 4th April 1908 11. PRONI Will of Sarah Carson 2nd July 1920 12. Street Directory 1918 13. 1901 census online 14. 1911 census online

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

A. Style B. Proportion C. Ornamentation D. Plan Form I. Quality and survival of Interior J. Setting

Historic Interest

X. Local Interest Y. Social, Cultural or Economic Importance

Evaluation

Detached symmetrical three-bay two-storey rendered early nineteenth-century house, with two-storey return, formerly a shop and post-office. Much original fabric survives, including details from the late nineteenth or early twentieth-century representing its history in changes arising from changing use. Its original setting on a corner site survives with front railed garden, extensive gardens to the east and a two-storey coach-house to the north. This is a good example of the type, well-detailed and proportioned and representing the commercial history of the locale and of the countryside as a whole.

General Comments

Date of Survey

19 April 2012