Formerly 125 Dungannon Road, Portadown,Craigavon, BT62 1UG

Single-storey vernacular farmhouse of probable pre-1833 construction, with mud walls, thatch concealed beneath a corrugated tin roof, and an attached outbuilding. The house sits within a farmyard on a quiet country road just over one kilometre south of the M1 at The Birches, approximately three kilometres from both Portadown town and the south shore of Lough Neagh, in Derrykeeran townland, County Armagh.

The house is rectangular and four-bay in plan, facing south, with a hearth-lobby planform — a traditional arrangement in which the entrance opens directly onto the side of a large central hearth. There is a single-storey extension to the rear and a low single-storey outbuilding attached to the east gable. The walls are mud construction with red-brick surrounds to openings, finished externally in dry-dash render. The roof is corrugated tin laid over the original thatch, which survives beneath with roughly hewn timber roof structure. There are three rendered red-brick chimney stacks, though the pots are missing.

The south-facing front elevation is largely as originally built in its proportions and arrangement, with three window openings to the left of the entrance and one to the right. The windows are timber sliding-sash, two-over-two panes, single-glazed, though currently boarded up on the outside; they remain visible and largely intact internally. Decorative smooth render bands frame each window opening, and there is a plain smooth render plinth at ground level. Cills are smooth rendered red-brick. A small off-centre porch, positioned to the right, has a pitched corrugated tin roof, painted timber bargeboard and soffit, a square-headed doorway with a painted boarded-timber door with knob handle, and a glazed overlight with patterned glass. Eaves are finished with a plain painted timber fascia and uPVC rainwater goods.

The rear elevation is plainer. Two square-headed window openings sit either side of the centrally placed rear extension. On the left, one opening is boarded up and the other was widened in the mid-20th century and fitted with a painted timber window with top-hung sections, single-glazed. On the right, the wall of the first bay projects slightly and retains painted timber two-over-two sliding-sash windows, single-glazed. There is a slightly projecting render band at eaves level, likely associated with mid-20th-century modifications to the thatch roof. The rear extension is early-to-mid 20th century, constructed in brick with a roughcast render finish. It has large square-headed window openings on the north and west elevations — the north window being multi-paned, the west having a top-opening central section — and a square-headed door on the east fitted with a painted panelled timber door. Windows to the extension are painted metal. Both side elevations are blank painted roughcast render; the east gable has the outbuilding attached and carries painted timber bargeboard and soffit at eaves, as do the other elevations. The east gable of the outbuilding has a single square-headed door opening.

The attached outbuilding to the east is plainly detailed, with no window openings to the south or rear, painted roughcast render walls, a corrugated tin roof without thatch beneath, and two metal rooflights, one of which has lost its glazing. Its gutters match those of the main house.

The interior is largely intact and retains significant original features including a large hearth, panelled doors, and boarded ceilings.

The house is set back slightly from the road. The ground in front is finished in gravel, with concrete hardstanding to the farmyard. The front boundary is defined by a modern stained timber fence on a low concrete plinth. Mature shrubs and trees stand to the north and west of the house. A large lean-to shed at the western boundary has painted roughcast render walls and a large corrugated metal sliding door. A modern house occupies the adjacent site to the west.

In terms of its history, the landscape of this part of north Armagh was largely boggy and undeveloped in the later 18th century, as depicted on Rocque's County Armagh map of 1760 and a 1785 map of the Lough Neagh hinterland. A structure corresponding to the present house appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834–35, though it is not recorded in the near-contemporary first valuation, making it difficult to determine whether the building was then smaller than its current form or whether this reflects a cartographic inaccuracy. The most likely period of construction is the very end of the 18th century or the early 19th century, a time of rapid population growth across Ireland during which more marginal land was increasingly built upon. Population increase in this part of north Armagh was also driven by growth in linen manufacturing, which brought new dwellings in which spinning and weaving were carried out alongside domestic life.

By the time of the revised Ordnance Survey map of 1859 the building appears in its current footprint but without the small rear return. The circa 1860 valuation records the house as the home of Joseph Hare, with Thomas C. Wakefield as immediate lessor and the property rated at £1-10-0. In 1870 the valuation was raised to £2-5-0 following the construction of a new thatched outbuilding. William Hare succeeded as occupant around 1894 and acquired the freehold in 1906. The property passed to Samuel J. Benson in 1912 and has remained with his descendants. From 1917 Mr. Benson rented the house to Samuel Clarke, who was still in residence in 1930. The house appears to have remained occupied until approximately the 1990s, when a late 20th-century dwelling was built immediately to the west.

The house is one of a significant surviving group of vernacular buildings of similar style, plan form, mud-wall construction, and roofing along the south shore of Lough Neagh, and retains exceptional integrity of fabric, form, and interior.