30 Bluestone Road, Crossmacahilly, Portadown, Craigavon, Co Armagh, BT63 5SR

30 Bluestone Road is a four-bay, lobby-entry, mud-walled thatched house, probably dating from the mid-18th century, and one of the rarest surviving examples of its type in the area. It was originally built as one half of a semi-detached vernacular pair, though its neighbour has now largely disappeared. The house faces south onto Bluestone Road and is set back from it by a garden approximately six metres deep.

The exterior walls are smooth rendered and painted, formerly whitewashed. Along the road boundary runs a whitewashed wall and hedge, with a wrought iron gate opposite the entrance flanked by square posts with pyramidal caps. A further pair of round 'Ulster' piers flank a wrought iron gate giving access to the farmyard at the eastern end of the plot.

The thatched roof is historic and intact. It is finished in scallop thatch of combed wheat reed with a flush head recently applied, fixed with an X-shaped pattern of liggers. At the eastern end, a small hip — a raised peak at the ridge — drops to form a protective verge over the gable wall. A similar peak is formed at the western end where the roof drops to meet the tin roof of the former neighbour. No other fixings are visible on the roof surface. The eaves and verge are protected by wire mesh; the eaves are cut back parallel with the ground and the verge parallel with the roof slope. The two chimneys, which sit on the ridge, are wet-dashed and parged in cement at their junction with the thatch. One chimney aligns with the entrance door and the other sits over the structural bay to the east.

A small rectangular porch with a flat roof projects from the centre of the front elevation. It has pebble-dashed walls with sand and cement corners and cornice, all painted white to match the rest of the building. The front windows are painted white, sash-hung, and of irregular distribution and size. The sashes have no horns and the boxes are exposed. To the east of the main entrance, two windows light the interior room, while a single window lights the end structural bay. To the right of the entrance, a smaller, high-placed window lights the kitchen, and two further windows light the larger structural bay beyond. The entrance sits at almost the exact centre of the building.

To the west, a small tin-roofed barn abuts the house. This is in separate ownership and is all that remains of a second house of similar proportions to the one described. The mud walls of this shed are exposed and weathering.

To the rear, a small concrete-topped yard approximately three metres deep is enclosed by a waist-high concrete block retaining wall. A flat-roofed kitchen extension projects from the centre of the rear elevation. To the west of this return are two small windows — one sash, one casement. A large casement window serves the kitchen, and a horizontally proportioned casement — in keeping with the character of the house — serves the former kitchen on the east side. The wall on the east side is rendered in a fine wet dash and sits forward by approximately 150mm. The thatch above has not been altered to accommodate this, meaning that rather than the full 300mm thickness being present, only 150mm of thatch is exposed along this edge. There is a sash window into the bay near the gable, and the end gable is blank.

Perpendicular to the house at the rear, aligned two metres from the gable, stands a two-storey red brick barn. The bricks are handmade and laid in English Garden Wall bond. It has a natural slate roof, which is sagging, and two flat-arched openings for farm machinery. It complements the setting of the house and is included within the extent of the listing together with the house itself.

The history of the property is well documented. The house appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834–35 already showing what appears to be the front porch. It is not recorded in the first valuation of around 1835, but by 1862 it is noted as the home of Alexander Pendleton, who leased it directly from the Manchester Estate at a rateable value of £2 5s 0d. By this date the rear barn had already been constructed. In 1878 Alexander Pendleton was succeeded by Richard Dilworth, and shortly after the lease passed to Arthur McMurray, though Dilworth remained as tenant and eventually purchased the freehold outright in 1910. An Alexander Dilworth is recorded as occupant in 1919 and remained there until at least 1929. At some point after this the house was acquired by the Robinson family. It was compulsorily purchased by the Craigavon Development in the 1960s as part of the Craigavon New Town development, but sold back to its previous owner in 1994.

The age of the building is uncertain, though it is estimated to date from between 1740 and 1759. The Bluestone Road, known in the mid to later 17th century as the 'King's High Street', saw a relatively large influx of settlers during that period, including many Quakers — mainly from Yorkshire — and, it has been suggested, a significant number of people from neighbouring parishes dispossessed during the upheavals of the 1640s. This contributed to a relatively dense concentration of buildings along the road, some of which are indicated on John Rocque's 1760 map of the area, though that plan is not accurate enough to draw firm conclusions about this or any other individual building. An estate map of Crossmacahilly drawn up between 1765 and 1770 shows that the property's plot boundaries had been established by that date, suggesting a house was already present. The name 'Th. Stewart' — presumably Thomas Stewart — is written within the plot on the map, but the accompanying list of tenants records it as being held by 'Widow Richard Dynes'. Interestingly, a 'Dynes Hill' is marked a short distance to the southwest on the current Ordnance Survey map. Local historian Francis McCorry, in his Journeys in County Armagh and Adjoining Districts, dates the house to the late 18th century.

In the late 1980s renovation works were carried out. The rear kitchen extension was constructed, and a concrete block wall was built in front of the mud wall to the rear of the eastern bay to provide support where the wall was considered to be leaning. The roof was re-thatched in 1992 using wheat straw, repaired again in 1998, and given a further coat in 2000, also in wheat straw. The neighbouring building was recorded by the first Historic Buildings Survey in 1970, but by 1986 was recorded as derelict and no longer fit to list; given its mud construction it is likely to have decayed rapidly after that date. The house itself was listed in 1988.