Former house at rear of, 61 Clonmacash Road, Portadown, Co. Armagh, BT62 1LT

Former Farmhouse at the Rear of 61 Clonmacash Road, Portadown

A mudwalled, single-storey vernacular farmhouse built around 1820, situated at the end of a lane amongst other dwellings and farmsteads. The house is enclosed by farm buildings to the south, west and north, with a replacement dwelling dated 1974–75 immediately to the north.

The farmhouse comprises the original dwelling with an attached east barn and later additions. The front elevation faces north and consists of a four-bay frontage with a small pitched-roof porch featuring a square-headed doorway. The walls are mud construction with some external sections replaced, notably the front elevation and part of the rear southwest wall. Internal and gable mud walls remain. The wall finish is roughcast, with window surrounds and door openings mostly plain except for the northwest corner of the front elevation, which displays smooth render corbelling and surrounds to the window and porch door.

The roof likely remains original thatch, as suggested by the visible thatch and timber roof of the attached east barn, which may be thatch under tin sheeting. Chimneystack replacements in brick sit on the ridgeline—one on each gable of the main dwelling and one off-centre.

Square-headed openings throughout contain primarily timber sliding sash windows, all currently boarded. A stone-built lean-to extension extends to the rear. A hen house lies to the east. A barn is attached to the west gable, both the hen house and western barn being 20th-century additions.

Materials comprise mud, rubblestone and block walling, thatch roof (partially confirmed), cast-iron rainwater goods, and timber sliding sash windows.

Historical records show houses in this area on John Rocque's 1760 county map. The 1835 Ordnance Survey map depicts a long building matching the present plan and position, though it was not recorded in the contemporary first valuation book as it fell below rateable value. By 1864 the building was recorded as two dwellings. The western property was occupied by Henry Platt and the eastern by Henry Fearins, both leased from Henry Atkinson. Succession and family records document occupation through the Platt family. In the 1901 census, Mary Platt, a 45-year-old widow and farmer, is recorded residing in the larger house with four school-age children; the building is noted as a second-class thatched dwelling with four windows in front and two rooms. The adjacent smaller dwelling, a third-class thatched property with two rooms and three front windows, was occupied by William Henry Platt, an unmarried 38-year-old farmer, likely Mary's brother-in-law. The 1911 census shows William now married to Mary Ann, and the larger property listed as having three rooms. By this date the larger house had likely assumed much of its present appearance, although the corrugated iron roof covering and porch are later additions. The Platt family is believed to have occupied the property until at least the early 1950s, when the present owner's family acquired it prior to the mid-1970s.

The original fabric has been substantially compromised by replacement of most external walls, numerous accretions to the main building, and the poor cramped setting, leaving the building with insufficient merit to be considered a special example of vernacular architecture.