83 Blackskull Road, Banbridge, Co Down, BT25 1JN

83 Blackskull Road, Banbridge

A detached multi-bay single-storey white-washed former thatched dwelling, built around 1820. The building is rectangular on plan and faces northeast, approached via a long shared lane to the east of Blackskull Road.

The dwelling displays much of its original character and historic fabric. The pitched corrugated iron roof—which strongly suggests the building was once thatched and may still conceal surviving thatch beneath—is fitted with three rendered chimneysstacks, cast-iron guttering on iron drive-through brackets to rendered eaves, and cast-iron downpipes. The walls are white-washed lime render over rubblestone. The front elevation is four windows wide with a central square-headed door opening fitted with a flush replacement door, opening onto a small cobbled front area. Window openings are square-headed with concrete sills and timber lintels, containing horizontally glazed two-over-two timber sash windows with exposed sash boxes.

To the south gable is a single-bay stone byre with pitched natural slate roof, coursed rubblestone walling, and redbrick window and door openings featuring a timber sheeted half-door. A lean-to extension abuts the rear elevation, which has square-headed window openings with four-pane timber casement windows.

The property is shown as a rectangular structure on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834. By the second edition of 1858, it appears as the main dwelling of a group of three separate houses on the site. Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 records it as a ten-acre plot valued at £1 15 shillings, leased from William Rea and occupied by Thomas Carson senior. By 1900, occupants James Seawright and his wife—both hand loom weavers—lived there with their seven children in what was designated a second-class two-room dwelling. The First General Revaluation of 1933–34 records the accommodation as comprising two bedrooms and a kitchen, with a single-storey return of rubble masonry and corrugated iron, let at two shillings per week.

This is a good example of vernacular rural housing and one of a diminishing number surviving in Northern Ireland.