Pogue's Entry Historical Cottage, 40-54 Church Street, Antrim, BT41 4BA

Pogue's Entry Historical Cottage is a restored single-storey vernacular cottage of probable late 18th century date, preserved since 1934 as a museum and memorial to the Antrim author Dr Alexander Irvine (1863–1941), who spent his childhood here. The cottage retains an earthen floor and is open to the public on a seasonal basis, serving as a rare surviving example of a modest urban vernacular cottage of this type. The narrow cobbled entry or passageway leading to it — once one of several such lanes off Church Street where the labouring classes lived — is itself a rare survival. The building appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1832.

THE COTTAGE

The building is a single-storey slated structure with gabled ends, built of whitened rubble stonework, comprising a pair of semi-detached former cottages, each of two bays. The cottage to the north has been extended at the rear with a small return. The entrance faces east.

East (front) elevation: single-storey, four bays wide; roof of Bangor blue slates laid in regular courses; two chimneys of white-painted brickwork with plain brick cornices and no pots. The rubble stonework walls have roughly constructed brick block dressings to all openings, painted white throughout, with a black-painted plinth indicated by paintwork only. There is a projecting eaves course, cast iron gutter and downpipe. The two windows are rectangular timber sliding sashes, six over six panes, without horns, set in exposed sash boxes with projecting cills. The left window has a slightly projecting timber surround and lintel; the right has plain reveals and a painted lintel. Both windows have modern security grilles attached. The left door is a rectangular timber tongued-and-grooved sheeted door with a similarly sheeted half-door mounted in front of it, set in a timber frame with plain reveals and an old latch; it bears a sign reading "The Chimney Corner". The right door is a modern rectangular ledged timber door with a modern metal handle.

South elevation: a blank gable of similar rubble stonework to the front.

Rear elevation: single-storey; roof of synthetic slates; a mixture of cast iron and PVC gutters and a cast iron downpipe. The walling is basalt rubble with handmade brick block dressings to one window and modern red brick dressings to the left-hand window, which also has similar brick blocking up a former opening below the present cill line. The left-hand window in the main wall is a modern rectangular metal casement of four panes, set in plain reveals with a concrete lintel. The right-hand window is a rectangular timber sliding sash, vertically hung, six over six panes, without horns, in an exposed sash box set in plain reveals, with a rubble stone cill roughly cement rendered. The short rear return is constructed of modern red brick with a flat asphalt roof, smooth cement-rendered reveals and cill, and a PVC gutter; its window is a rectangular timber sliding sash, four over four panes, with horns.

THE SETTING AND COURTYARD

The cottage faces a cobbled courtyard reached by a narrow cobbled passageway or entry leading from the public pavement on Church Street. The passageway is flanked by two rubble stone walls and has an iron gate of traditional flat-bar type at the street end, above which is a pergola roof of dark-stained shaped timber joists.

To each side of the stone-walled entry, at pavement level, is a small recessed courtyard surfaced in concrete pavings. The court to the left is bounded on the east by the red brick gable of an adjoining building, and at the rear by a basalt rubble wall with concrete coping, containing a rectangular window opening fitted with a flat-bar ironwork grille; it also has a timber bench seat on a basalt rubble base and four concrete bollards across its front. The court to the right is bounded on the west by the rendered gable of an adjoining building and at the rear by a basalt rubble wall with concrete coping; it has a matching bench seat, one mature tree, and two concrete bollards to the front.

The entry leads through to the cobbled courtyard behind these screen walls, whose rear faces are partly exposed rubble and partly white-painted. Beyond a low rubble stone wall the courtyard slopes down to a rear garden with grass, flowerbeds and mature trees, enclosed by rubble stone boundary walls. A narrow blind alley runs behind the single-storey cottage between it and the boundary wall to the west. The east side of the courtyard is occupied by a two-storey building with a single-storey extension.

TWO-STOREY BUILDING ON THE EAST SIDE OF THE COURTYARD

This is a building of two-storey appearance only, with a single-storey extension to the south; its main entrances face west. It appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1857 and dates from the 19th century.

West elevation: two-storey appearance; slated roof; one chimney of white-painted brick with a concrete cornice and one red stub pot. The walls are white-painted brickwork with a black-painted plinth indicated by paintwork only, a projecting eaves course, and cast iron gutters and downpipes. The elevation consists of a flat-roofed two-bay projection to the left and a set-back six-bay pitched-roof block to the right, which extends further to a lower single-storey flat-roofed block at its right-hand end.

Left-hand projection: walls of rubble stone with brick block dressings, all white-painted, with a concrete coping. At ground floor level there are two windows: the left-hand one is a large rectangular timber fixed light of fifteen panes set in a timber surround; the right-hand one is a rectangular timber sliding sash, six over six panes, with horns, in exposed sash boxes in plain reveals with a flat arch head. Above, in the first-floor area, is a small timber fixed light of six panes, though it does not illuminate any room.

Pitched-roof block: six bays, two-storey appearance; roof of what appears to be synthetic slates in regular courses. Walls of white-painted brickwork with a black-painted plinth indicated by paintwork only; projecting eaves course; cast iron gutter and downpipe. There are three doors, all rectangular and timber tongued-and-grooved sheeted, except the leftmost which has the sheeting mounted on a panelled door; the second door from the left is a dummy fitted to the wall only. At ground floor level there are three windows, all rectangular timber sliding sashes, six over six panes, with horns, in exposed sash boxes with plain reveals. At first-floor level there are three matching windows, but these do not illuminate any rooms.

South gable: timber bargeboards; white-painted brickwork walls; two rectangular metal top-hung windows at high level. At ground level a single-storey flat-roofed block projects outward, with a concrete roof finished in asphalt, walls matching the main block, and three modern rectangular metal top-hung windows with concrete cills.

HISTORICAL NOTE

The cottage's precise date of construction is not recorded but it is reputed to be of 18th century origin. Originally, two buildings screened the yard and entry from the street, but both have been removed, possibly at the time of a restoration scheme carried out by architect Denis O'D. Hanna in 1961; it was presumably at that time that the stone-walled forecourt and the modern entrance gateway were created.

The entry was originally known as Adair's Entry, one of several such lanes running off Church Street where Antrim's labouring classes lived. It became famous through Dr Alexander Irvine's best-selling book My Lady of the Chimney Corner, published in 1913, in which the cottage and entry are the setting and his mother Anna is the "Lady" of the title. Irvine was born nearby in an adjacent entry called Rooney's (later Scott's Entry) but grew up in Adair's Entry. He went on to achieve wide fame as a writer and as minister of the Church of the Ascension on Fifth Avenue in New York — known as the "millionaires' church" — and as a romantic socialist visionary. During the First World War he served as chief morale officer of the Allies at the front. His circle of friends included the American novelist Jack London, George Russell, Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Mark Twain, and J. M. Barrie. A sequel, The Souls of Poor Folk, published in 1921, further added to the renown of Pogue's Entry.

On 29 September 1934 the cottage was officially opened to the public at a ceremony presided over by the Viscount Massereene and Ferrard, with the stated intention that "this humble dwelling may be kept intact and unspoiled by time or circumstance, to bear silent and eloquent witness to the great love that dwelt there, and to the affection and reverence that a son of Antrim has for his mother."