60 Moy Road, Portadown, BT62 1QW

60 Moy Road, Portadown — Vernacular Cottage, pre-1835

This is a long, single-storey vernacular cottage of pre-1835 construction, set in a rural location in the townland of Cornamucklagh, approximately 3.3 kilometres north-west of Portadown and 117 metres south of Moy Road, County Armagh. The building was assessed for listing but was found to retain insufficient historic fabric to meet the criteria; it is therefore recorded only.

The cottage is arranged as a linear range running north-west to south-east, with its principal elevation facing north-east. It sits on what was the original access track to an adjacent quarry, which runs immediately in front of the building and is truncated by a newer quarry access road approximately 75 metres to the south-east. A band of stone cobbles runs the full length of the front elevation, blending into a bitumen macadam roadway with lawn beyond.

The building is constructed of coursed and random rubble stone, brick, and mud-walled construction throughout, with concrete blockwork used to infill openings and form window reveals where alterations have been made. The walls are finished in wet dash render, painted, with a painted smooth render plinth. Red clay brick is visible at corners and at the eaves of the north-west gable, where the original brick header eaves course can still be seen. Above this, brick infill marks where the roof was subsequently raised and the pitch steepened.

The roof over the cottage section is a pitched corrugated galvanised steel sheet, painted. The store room section has a painted corrugated galvanised steel sheet roof, and the central rear return has a powder-coated (PPC) trapezoidal steel sheet roof. The flat roof over the former byre at the south-east end slopes to the rear. Matching pressed galvanised steel ridge and half-round uPVC rainwater goods with round downpipes are used throughout, with an ogee gutter and round downpipe to the rear timber return at the kitchen access.

The front north-east elevation reads as a single storey throughout. From north to south it comprises three store rooms followed by the dwelling, with the south-east end being the original byre, now converted to living accommodation. A single door aperture in the former byre is visible but has been infilled with concrete block. The cottage section has three uPVC windows with top-hung casements, a porch with a uPVC door, and a timber-sheeted door to the north that has been blocked up. A single concrete block chimney with a single red clay pot remains standing. Where the central chimney has been demolished, a section of the rear roof is unpainted steel.

The store room section on the front elevation has three door apertures: a painted timber-sheeted door, a steel security door and frame, and a concrete block infill with a uPVC side-hung casement window. There are no window or door apertures visible on the store room section of the rear elevation, except for a rough opening in the stonework where internal concrete block walling is visible within store room G09.

The rear south-west elevation is of random rubble stonework with concrete blockwork window reveals. It has five uPVC windows with top-hung casements. A timber-framed and sheeted return to the south-east houses the rear door to the kitchen, reached via a timber-framed external seating area roofed with transparent corrugated sheet. A recently constructed, open-sided 21st-century shed containing a pizza oven sits opposite, with a gravel driveway between. A central block-built return with smooth sand and cement render houses an oil-fired boiler; this has a single timber door to the south and a single steel-framed, single-glazed window to the north.

The south-east end elevation is of coursed rubble with red clay brick corners and a timber fascia. A timber-framed and sheeted return to the south-west has a contiguous metal sheet roof and a uPVC ogee gutter with round downpipe. The north-west end gable is a pitched painted roughcast render finish with a painted timber bargeboard and a single high-level vent aperture infilled with concrete block.

The building retains some historic fabric — limewash over mud and rubblestone walls — and the original openings are largely intact. However, the original hearth, internal joinery, doors, and windows have been removed or replaced. The windows have been almost entirely replaced with uPVC units. There is no evidence of thatch surviving beneath the tin roof in the house section. In the attached outbuilding section, remnants of thatch remain, but modern sawn timbers have been introduced beneath the tin roof, indicating that the thatch was removed, the roof raised, and new timbers inserted thereafter.

Historical background

A building matching the plan and location of the present cottage appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1835. Structures are also depicted in the general vicinity on John Rocque's 1760 County Armagh map, though the nature of Rocque's survey makes it difficult to correlate individual buildings shown on it with those recorded on the later and more accurate Ordnance Survey maps. The house does not appear in the 1836 valuation of Drumcree parish, as no dwellings in Cornamucklagh townland were of sufficient rateable value to meet the threshold at that time.

By the second valuation of 1862, the property — described as a house, office (meaning outbuilding), and land — was in the possession of James Honeyford, who held it as a tenant of the Brownlow (Lord Lurgan) estate. The building was rated at a relatively modest £1-15-0. In 1885 the rateable value was raised to £2 owing to the presence of "new offices." No additional freestanding structures or extensions are discernible on the 1901 Ordnance Survey map, and it is possible this increase reflected the rebuilding or refurbishment of the outbuildings at the north end of the house, though this cannot be confirmed. Benjamin Honeyford Junior is recorded as tenant in 1887, and by 1892 or shortly before he had acquired the freehold.

In the 1901 census, Benjamin Honeyford — a 38-year-old farmer — is recorded as living here with his wife Sarah, their two infant daughters, and a farm labourer named Robert Henry Smith. The house is described as a third-class thatched dwelling with four rooms in use. The 1911 census records the building in much the same state, with four further children having been added to the family. The Honeyford family appear to have held the property until at least the mid-1930s. The present occupant's husband began renting the house around 1975.

Townland note

The townland name Cornamucklagh derives from the Irish Corr na Muclach, meaning "round hill of the piggeries." The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of February 1835 describe the townland as follows: "Cornamucklagh, so pronounced. Proprietors C. Brownlow Esquire, agent W. Hancock. A hill in this townland is 177 feet above the sea, the highest in the parish. Contains 50 acres of bog, farms from 3 to 12 acres, rent 28s. Houses are of stone. Portadown is 2 and a half miles distant. [Area] 130 acres 38 perches."