59 Circular Road, Katesbridge, Banbridge, Co Down, BT32 5LP

59 Circular Road, Katesbridge

This is a one-and-a-half storey two-bay house of traditional construction, pre-dating 1833, located south of Circular Road approximately four miles south-east of Banbridge. The building sits on an elevated rural site, accessed by a lane sweeping across its principal elevation.

The house is constructed of rubble masonry rendered in lime wash over lime render. It has a pitched natural slate roof with clay ridge tiles and concrete skews. A roughcast rendered chimney with corbelled cap, flaunching and no pots serves the dwelling. The eaves are corbelled with metal rainwater goods and drive-in brackets, now largely replaced in uPVC.

The principal elevation faces north and is asymmetrically arranged with the front door and a window on the left bay and a single window on the right bay. Windows are timber-framed 6/6 sliding sash windows with horns, exposed sash-boxes and painted masonry cills. The door is a five-panelled timber door with surface fixed mouldings, exposed timber frame and plinth blocks. Both windows and door are set beneath recessed round-headed arches, a formal Georgian treatment that contrasts with the building's vernacular origins. A cast-iron roof light lies to the right. The left gable contains a single replacement timber casement attic window. The ground floor is abutted by a single-storey shed with corrugated-iron roof and large timber sheeted door.

The rear elevation is partially embedded into rising landscape, with two varying replacement timber casement windows and a cast-iron roof light to the left. The right gable is symmetrically arranged with a single replacement timber casement attic window.

The site is set within a complex of outbuildings. A double-height linear block extends beyond the east gable, with a further block orientated perpendicular to the dwelling. A smaller single-storey shed runs parallel to the house to the rear. All outbuildings have natural slate roofing and lime render over rubble masonry walling, with timber sheeted doors and replacement sawn timber roof structures. Wrought-iron field gates are carried on rubble masonry cylindrical piers to the south and west.

The interior has lost a significant proportion of original fabric, although the layout remains in principal. By the 1930s the accommodation comprised a reception kitchen and pantry with two bedrooms on the top floor.

Maps from the Ordnance Survey first edition of 1833 show buildings on this site corresponding to those present today. The dwelling appears as separate from its attached outbuilding on maps of 1859 and again in editions from the 1960s-70s, indicating that the connecting structure has been demolished and rebuilt at various points. The house was listed in the Townland Valuation (1828-40) as the home of Thomas McMurray, valued at £4.18 shillings, with dimensions recorded for a slated house and two single-storey thatched outbuildings. At Griffith's Valuation (1856-64), Thomas McMurray continued in residence, paying annual rent of £18 to the Marquess of Downshire for the house, offices and over 19 acres, valued at £5.

Thomas McMurray died on 19 July 1874. His will bequeathed the house "as it now stands with all the furniture together with the office houses and garden and the field behind the stack yard" to his wife Jane for her lifetime provided she remained unmarried, along with the best cow from his herd. McMurray's widow took over the farm in 1876. By 1887 the house was designated a caretaker's house, though the purpose is unclear.

James Smyth became tenant in 1889, dying on 7 July 1897. His widow Isabella Smyth continued in occupation. At the 1901 census, the 60-year-old widow Isabella Smyth was recorded as a farmer living at the house with her three adult children, one a blacksmith. The house had five rooms and was designated 2nd class. The building could not be identified in the 1911 census, but by 1912 it had returned to McMurray family hands before passing to Thomas McAnerney in 1913. McAnerney became owner in fee under land purchase legislation in 1915.

The house has not been lived in for some time and is currently in a state of disrepair. Although of local interest and increasingly rare, insufficient original fabric remains to merit listing.