14 Main Street, Scarva, Craigavon, Co Down, BT63 6LS

14 Main Street, Scarva is a two-storey, four-bay, end-of-terrace townhouse predating 1830, most likely built in the late 18th or early 19th century. It stands on the north side of the village on the east side of Main Street, and is a significant local landmark having served successively as a thatched grocery shop and then as the village police barracks before returning to use as a dwelling. The building is currently vacant.

The plan is rectangular with a two-storey rear return. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with clay ridge tiles. The chimney is cement rendered and is positioned at the apex of the south-west gable. Cast-iron rainwater goods are partially removed. The external walls are finished in dry-dash on red mortar, with plain long-and-short quoins at the corners and a smooth rendered plinth band. Window and door openings have plain raised reveals and masonry cills. All doors and windows are currently boarded up.

The principal elevation faces north-west and is asymmetrically arranged. The entrance door sits left of centre, with one window to its left and two to its right. The first-floor windows are diminished in height relative to those on the ground floor and sit directly above the ground-floor openings. The north-east gable is cement rendered and its view is largely obscured by an adjoining rubble masonry wall to the right. The south-west gable is also cement rendered and is largely abutted by the adjoining two-storey building at 16 Main Street. No view to the rear elevation was possible at the time of survey.

The building sits at the end of a continuous terrace running the full length of the east side of Main Street. To the rear is a heavily vegetated embankment. Opposite the house is a modern information centre adjacent to a landscaped public area, beyond which runs the Newry Canal.

The condition of the windows was indeterminable at the time of survey, although the proportions and overall style appear largely unaltered from the original.

Historical background

Scarva was founded in 1746 by John Reilly of Scarva House, beside the newly opened Newry Canal. The town was laid out in anticipation of trade generated by the canal, which had opened in 1742 to connect Carlingford Lough with Lough Neagh, primarily as a route to carry coal from east Tyrone to Dublin quickly and cheaply. Reilly obtained a patent for holding fairs and markets and constructed a small dock and quay. Taylor and Skinner's 1777 map shows that early development was concentrated around the bridge over the canal, with the town extending northwards through the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The 1797 Topographica Hibernica described Scarva as a small, neat village with a large salt works, where fairs were held four times a year. By 1829, according to Capper's Topographical Dictionary, the population stood at 170 living in 33 houses. By 1875 the canal was still bringing cargoes of turf to Scarva using the dock and quay for lighters, though the market had ceased. The population remained broadly stable across the 19th century, recorded at 157 in 1910.

This house appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834 and is listed in the Townland Valuation of 1828–40 as a thatched building. At that time the occupier was a Mr Wilson, and the valuation records a two-storey house thirteen feet high to the eaves, two offices, a yard and a garden, with the buildings valued at £3 8s.

By the time of Griffith's Valuation of 1856–64 the occupier was Sarah B. Smith, later Charles Smith, with the property leased from John Temple Reilly. The buildings were by then valued at £5 10s and the house, still thatched, was in use as a grocery shop. The valuation records dimensions for the house, the two-storey return, and a single-storey outbuilding, though the valuer noted that the offices were dilapidated and not in use.

In 1874 the building became the village police barracks and its valuation was raised to £8 10s, reflecting improvements likely made at that time, possibly including raising the roof height and replacing the thatch with slate. The rent paid to J. T. Reilly was £16. A valuer's note from 1894 records: "enclosed yard, garden, privy, good water from pump on premises. Building all in good order, very comfortable barracks. Drainage appears good."

At the time of the 1901 census the sergeant in charge was Hugh Barr, a farmer's son from County Antrim. The barracks also accommodated Barr's wife, his two-year-old daughter, and three constables — all sons of farmers and representing each of the major religious denominations: Catholic, Presbyterian, and Church of Ireland. The Royal Irish Constabulary had been formed in 1867, and in the early years of the constabulary, barracks across the country were typically established in existing buildings rather than purpose-built ones. Early barracks provided simple living accommodation, a small office, and a cell. Purpose-built RUC barracks only began to be constructed across the province after partition.

By 1903 the barracks had relocated to a new building next to the canal, and the present house became the property of a Scotsman named Samuel Greer, who let it to a succession of tenants: William Adamson in 1905, Hugh Barr the former police sergeant in 1907, James Bennett in 1909, and James Greer in 1911. James Greer, a watchmaker and jeweller and native of Scotland, is recorded as occupier in the 1911 census, living with his wife and five young children aged between one and ten. The house is described in the census as having eight rooms and as being of the first class according to its size and construction materials. Greer is remembered locally as the donor of the village clock installed on the facade of the school — now St Matthew's parochial hall — in 1896.

A photograph survives from this period showing a woman and three young children standing in the doorway, possibly Mrs Greer and her children. The windows visible in that photograph match those recorded in 1971 at the time of the first heritage survey, and retain bars to the ground-floor openings that were likely installed when the house served as a barracks. Whether those original windows and bars remain in place is unknown, as the fenestration was obscured at the time of the most recent survey. The building continued in residential use for some years but is currently vacant.