Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB15/17/069

Address :
1 Meredith Place (aka 15 Drumadd Road) Armagh Co. Armagh BT61 9EA

Townland:
Drumadd

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Survey 2:
B2

Date of Listing:
08/04/2019 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:

Current Use:
House

Former Use
House

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
Partially

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OS Map No:
218-6SE

IG Ref:
H8845 4557

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Owner Category

Private

Exterior Description And Setting

Semi-detached two-storey two-bay sandstone house with attic and basement, dated 1842, located on the west side of Drumadd Road, east of Armagh City. The house is rectangular on plan and is the northernmost of the two properties. Later rear extension to basement, now collapsed. Pitched natural slate roof with angled ridge tiles and clipped verges having shared central rendered chimneystack with multiple replacement pots. Projecting stone eaves support profiled plastic gutter. Walling is squared and snecked sandstone, built to courses with cement pointing and dressed tooled quoins to front (east) elevation, rear elevation is random squared sandstone rubble; north gable is cement rendered. Windows are 1/1 timber sliding sashes, generally without horns, having stepped red brick surrounds with rendered reveals and set over projecting painted masonry cills. Principal elevation faces east and has two openings to each floor; the entrance is set to north side having stepped brick surround and patent reveal, and mid twentieth-century timber door with oval glazed top panel over three vertical panels. There is a datestone with ‘M.A./1842’ set at the centre of the pair. North gable is cement rendered and has a window to first floor aligned to east, an attic window aligned to west and two windows to basement (that to left boarded over). Rear elevation has French doors inserted to ground floor right and a window above at first floor; left side has two windows at half-landing level to left. Basement has a twentieth-century partially glazed (boarded) timber door to left; right side is abutted by the extension, now collapsed. South gable is abutted by an identical property (HB15/17/070). The house is street fronted, and backs onto the east bank of the Ballynahone River. There is an enclosed yard to rear with overgrown linear garden stretching to north. To north is a wall of similar construction to the house, bounding a vacant plot and having a timber sheeted gate leading to the rear. Roof: Slate Walling: Sandstone Windows: Timber RWG: Plastic

Architects

Historical Information

The historical record for the semi-detached pair of houses at Meredith Place is less than clear, suggesting a history of later subdivision and reconfiguration which is not evident within the building fabric. No.1 is the more historically complete of the two properties, and appears to retain the original layout, mirrored in the adjoining property, which suggests they were built as a pair, rather than as one dwelling. The first edition OS map (c.1835) shows a vacant plot, although there is a rectangular building slightly to the north. Owing to the datestone, which is not applied but integrated with the construction, we can be reasonably certain that the pair were constructed, as indicated, in 1842. The second edition OS map of c.1863 is damaged and the portion covering the townland of Drumadd is obscured, but a series of detailed hand-drawn town plan maps exist for Armagh from 1862. Meredith Place is shown on sheet 9, having substantial outbuildings to the west and south and a bridge across the Ballynahone River to land on the opposite bank. The garden to the north is laid out with a simple rectangular path entered through a gate to the south. The town plan map shows the building captioned ‘Merideth [sic] Place’, indicating what appear to be two opposing sets of entrance steps corresponding to the existing entrances. However, the building is drawn undivided, with main entrance gates to south side only, formal garden to north, and outbuildings informally grouped with internal dividing walls shown. It is unclear for what purpose the building would have been built as one dwelling, with two entrances. By the third edition OS map of c.1900, the returns to the west had been either demolished and replaced with extensions, or joined to the main range; the south range has been extended and is now the site of a separate house which corresponds to the original plan form of the former outbuilding. The earliest resident recorded is William McKane, listed in the Provincial Directory of 1852. Meredith Place is listed individually at the end of the entry for Drumadd Village in the Griffiths Valuation record (c.1863). Corresponding with the fact that the house is shown as a single property, only one entry is given, the tenant being Benjamin P. Davidson. The lessor was the eponymous Meredith Armstrong who was presumably the original builder of the property, with his initials on the datestone. Armstrong was a surgeon in Armagh and apothecary to the County Gaol, residing in English Street. The Valuations record describes the property as ‘house, offices, yard and garden’, valued at £23 10s and increased to £27 by 1882. In 1877, Rev. Edwin Storr, the minister of the Independent Church on College Street, was also listed as resident at Meredith Place in the Street Directory, suggesting that there were, indeed, two units at this time. Benjamin Davidson was a land and house agent, working for the Northern Fire and Life Insurance Office, and his wife and daughters ran a private ladies’ school from the family home at Meredith Place during the 1880s. By 1889 Davidson had begun subletting the property which had lost £10 in value, falling to £17 and the following year the Valuation Revisions records two properties valued £13 and £4 respectively which were both sublet by Davidson. The discrepancy in value suggests that one half of the property was sublet as house only, without yard, garden and ancillary buildings. This is upheld by Valuation Revisions in 1890, indicating that the property was split into two sublet portions, one valued at £13 10s comprising house, office, yard and garden, and the other valued at £4 comprising simply a house. In 1895, Davidson was succeeded as the leaseholder by D.P. Walker Martin, an Armagh income tax collector, who appears to have made substantial improvements to the lower valued property which increased in value to £10 and a note in the margin of the valuations for 1895 reads ‘improved and might let for £15’. The note also mentions that ‘these houses lie near Workhouse Fever Hospital tannery, south portion never let’. That the properties were difficult to let is reflected in a quick succession of tenants, with periods of vacancy, from 1891-1899. By 1899 the tenants were David Ferris in plot number 63A (assumed to be No.1, valued down to £12), Edith M. Jarvis in 63B (assumed to be No.2- valued up to £10) After various further changes of occupancy, the value of the properties remained unchanged in 1929 at which time the occupant of 63A is recorded as William McClelland, and the lower valued property as Clara and Sarah Hamilton. References Primary Sources 1. PRONI OS/6/2/24/1 – First Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1834) 2. PRONI OS/6/2/24/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1860) 3. PRONI OS/6/2/24/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1906) 4. PRONI OS/6/2/24/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1906-23) 5. PRONI OS/9/16/2/9 – Town Plan of Armagh City (1862) 6. PRONI VAL/12/B/10/4A + C + E + G – Valuation Records (1864-1899) 7. PRONI VAL/12/B/10/8A-C – Valuation Records (1899-1923) 8. PRONI VAL/12/B/10/15A – Valuation Records (1924-1929) 9. Belfast and Province of Ulster Directories (1852-1884)

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

B. Proportion D. Plan Form H-. Alterations detracting from building I. Quality and survival of Interior J. Setting

Historic Interest

R. Age X. Local Interest S. Authenticity

Evaluation

No.1 Meredith Place is one of a pair of semi-detached two-storey two-bay houses with basements and attics, bearing a datestone of 1842 and located on the west side of Drumadd settlement with Ballynahone River bounding the properties to west. Well-proportioned with restrained detailing, distiguished by fine squared and snecked sandstone construction characteristic of the local urban grain, contrasted with openings formed in red brick. No.1 retains timber sash windows, although these are later insertions, original plan form and significant internal historic fabric. It has a good setting, retaining large gardens to the side which are bounded to the road by a stone wall. Although its neighbour no. 2 has lost its original windows, the pair is a prominent feature along the Drumadd Road, enhancing the historic legibility of the former settlement known as Drumadd village.

General Comments

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Date of Survey

18 October 2018