24 Main St, Scarva, Craigavon, Co Down, BT63 6LS

A two-storey three-bay mid-terrace townhouse pre-dating 1830, located centrally on the east side of Main Street in Scarva. The building has a rectangular plan form and its proportions, style and character have remained largely unaltered, with sufficient historic fabric surviving to represent its historical development. It is of particular interest as a former shop and notable for its slightly larger scale within the context of Scarva.

The building features pitched natural slate roofing with clay ridge tiles and cement coping; roughcast chimneys with cornice and pots. The walling is painted roughcast with a smooth plinth band and long-and-short quoins. Windows and doors have thin plain raised reveals. The principal elevation faces west and is symmetrically arranged, with the front door centrally located and a window to either side. Above, three windows on the first floor are diminished in height and width and directly over the ground floor openings. The windows are 2/2 timber sliding sashes with vertical glazing bars and horns, with masonry cills. The front door is a replacement timber door. The left gable abuts 22 Main Street; the right gable abuts 26 Main Street. The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged with replacement timber casement windows throughout. On the ground floor left there is an enlarged window; three windows are on the first floor. To the ground floor right is a lean-to extension with artificial slate roofing and a modern rooflight with smooth rendered finish. uPVC rainwater goods serve the building.

The village of Scarva was founded in 1746 by John Reilly of Scarva House beside the newly-opened Newry Canal. The development of the village was prompted by the opening of the Newry Canal in 1742, which connected Carlingford Lough with Lough Neagh principally to bring coal from east Tyrone to Dublin speedily and inexpensively. John Reilly obtained a patent for holding fairs and markets and for building a small dock and quay. Early development concentrated around the bridge over the canal. Taylor and Skinner's 1777 map shows this concentration, and the 1797 Topographica Hibernica describes Scarva as a small neat village with a large salt work, where fairs were held four times a year. By 1829 the population had grown to 170 living in 33 houses. By 1875 the Newry Canal was bringing cargoes of turf to Scarva, utilising the dock and quay for lighters, though the market was no longer being held. The population remained reasonably steady through the nineteenth century, standing at 157 in 1910.

This house is shown on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map of 1834. It cannot be positively identified in the Townland Valuation of 1828-40, though it appears to correspond with a house, office and yard of Daniel Fitzpatrick valued at £4. In Griffith's Valuation of 1856-64, the house, office and small garden is listed as the property of John T Reilly, leased to Patrick Magee and valued at £6. The property comprised a two-storey slated house with a single-storey outbuilding. Subsequent occupiers included James Beck (1875), Abraham J Hanna (1886), Thomas Bennett (1891), William Courtney (1893), James Courtney (1899), Isabella Atkins (1903), Samuel Woods (1908), Margaret Clarke (1919), Thomas Morrow (1923), Elizabeth Hudson (1924) and Edwin Hudson (1929). The 1911 census lists it as the grocery shop of Samuel Woods, who lived with his wife and two young children; the couple also had two female boarders employed as school teachers, most likely in the village school. By the First General Revaluation of 1933-34 the house had been taken over by Samuel McGaffin; William Cromie followed in 1954. The house and shop were revalued at £10. Accommodation comprised a kitchen, scullery and two rooms downstairs with three bedrooms upstairs; the WC was then in the yard. The building was originally lime-rendered and is likely to be one of the later buildings constructed in Scarva. It has evolved over time and now presents an appearance typical of nineteenth-century village tenements. The building was listed in 1977. An undated survey photograph presumed to date from this period shows that one of the ground floor windows has since been replaced with a sliding sash to match the remaining windows. The façade is not symmetrical, and it may be that this anomalous window was originally larger and constituted a shop-front. The building remains in use as a dwelling.

The building is part 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 landscaped public area, beyond which runs the Newry Canal.