Former Derrykevan Post Office, 134 Dungannon Road, Portadown, Craigavon, Bt62 1Lh

The former Derrykevan Post Office is a single-storey mud-walled vernacular dwelling constructed between 1820 and 1839, located on the south-west side of Dungannon Road approximately 6 kilometres north-west of Portadown. The building is set significantly below the current road level due to successive re-layering of the road surface.

The structure is a rectangular gable-ended house following the hearth-lobby typology, with walls finished in painted roughcast. The original roof structure is constructed from roughly-hewn timber and thatched, now covered with corrugated metal sheeting with saw-tooth clay ridge tiles. Three brick chimneysstacks, appearing to be twentieth-century additions, are positioned one at each gable and one to the north-west of centre, with uPVC rainwater goods and metal fixings.

The front elevation facing north-east is asymmetrical, featuring a small gabled projecting porch with a sheeted timber door to the right of centre. To the left of the porch are three small unevenly-spaced windows, with a further window to the right, all with stone sills and sash frames with thick boxes and vertical margin panes. Above the second window from the left is a small painted timber sign reading "Derrykevan Post Office". To the immediate right of this window is a small boarded-up recess which previously held a wall-mounted post box, retained by the current owners. The gable ends are blank.

The south-west-facing rear elevation contains three unevenly-spaced windows matching those of the front, a sheeted timber door to the right, and a slightly enlarged window opening with a circa 1960s timber casement frame at the far right. A short stretch of roughcast walling extends from the rear wall to the north side, terminating in a large rendered gate pier with a modern metal gate. The yard to the rear is covered in relatively recently-laid concrete.

To the front of the building is a relatively narrow flagged space, bounded by a retaining wall topped with railings facing the road. Simple painted masonry walling with a decorative wrought iron gate is situated at the north-west gable, and simple painted masonry piers with a similar gate at the south-east gable. A partially rendered, partially brick-finished shed with a mono-pitched corrugated roof stands near the south-east gable, with a smaller brick building attached, originally a pig crew, featuring a round arch-headed opening and a matching roof.

The building is not clearly identifiable on the original 1835 Ordnance Survey 6-inch map, as it was not valued above £5 and was not included in the Townland Valuation. The second edition map of 1863–64 shows the property more clearly with a narrow plot running south-west containing the garden and three fields accessed by a lane to the north side leading into bogland. The immediate garden is divided in two with a line of trees to the southern boundary and a small shed. Fields are divided by drainage ditches running towards a larger "bog drain" marked on the 1835 map, which remain evident in the landscape today. By the third edition of 1905–07, a small shed with corrugated iron roof had been built immediately east of the house, and the drainage ditch sequence had been extended following acquisition of neighbouring land and construction of bridges. The late twentieth-century 25-inch map captions the building as a Post Office for the first time, showing a telephone kiosk (now removed) at the north-west corner and ancillary structures roughly on the plan of present units to the south, since replaced.

In the early nineteenth century, the townland of Derrykeevan was owned by Henry Stanley, a doctor living in Portadown on Church Street and later at Annagh Terrace. This property was valued at £4 15 shillings in 1863, rising to £5 in 1871, and leased from Stanley by William Wright, who held other leases in the townland. Henry Stanley died circa 1889 and was succeeded by his son John Robinson Stanley. Around 1891, Wright took the lease of the adjoining property to the south-east, though map evidence suggests the neighbouring house itself was demolished by 1896. William was succeeded by George Wright in 1903, who purchased the property from Stanley in 1913 under the Land Act of 1903. He retained ownership in 1920, with the property value remaining at £5. The building served as a post office from at least 1907, when Derrykevan Post Office appears in the Great Britain Post Office Guide. In recent years, the Wright family developed the site to include the present Eurospar, petrol station, and retail units, at which point the post office was presumably relocated.

The building is a notable example of traditionally constructed vernacular dwelling, now increasingly rare, retaining a wealth of original domestic features including the original post-office fixtures and fittings, now disused. The surviving thatch roof structure is of technical interest. The building forms an important part of the social and economic history of the area and is of national interest as an important and rare example of vernacular building.

The listing extends to the house, side-gates, piers, walling, and pig crew.