5 Rock Meeting Road, Fourtowns, Ballymacaratty Beg, Poyntzpass, Co.Armagh

A symmetrical two-storey three-bay farmhouse with rubble stone outbuildings, built around 1860 and located south of Rock Meeting Road near Poyntzpass, County Armagh. Although currently vacant and in a poor state of repair with some loss of fabric, the building retains good quality detailing and its original layout, with the exception of a later extension. The original character survives and it remains representative of its type in the area.

The house is of rectangular plan with a two-storey flat-roofed out-shot to the rear. It is constructed of harled lime render over rubble stone with a pitched profiled metal roof and no rainwater goods or chimneystacks. The principal elevation faces north-west and is three openings wide to each floor. The windows are boarded to the main elevation, with sashes in exposed boxes to the first floor and granite sills throughout. The north-east gable is abutted by a single-storey annexe with a blank top section. The rear south-east elevation is abutted at the centre by the two-storey flat-roof off-shot; windows to the left and right at ground and first floor level, with the ground floor windows enlarged as casements. The out-shot contains a window to ground and first floor and a timber-sheeted door to the west elevation. The south-west gable is blank.

The house is situated on an elevated site with views of the surrounding countryside, accessed via a curved laneway with mature trees. The front is lawned with a small orchard to the north. A roughcast rendered boundary wall with square piers having pointed caps and supporting a cast-iron latch gate bounds the property to the lane to the west. The farmyard lies to the rear.

The setting includes a two-storey rubble stone barn to the rear yard with metal casement windows and timber-sheeted loading doors. To the east stands a large modern agricultural shed enclosing the yard, and to the south is a modern farmyard. To the north, with shared access, is a modern two-storey detached house with a landscaped garden. The setting survives with good outbuildings to the rear, although somewhat compromised by the large modern shed to the east.

The house first appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1860 as a dwelling of rectangular plan form with an outbuilding to the rear, which has survived. It is listed in Griffith's Valuation (1856–64) as the farm of John McKnight, leased from the Earl of Clanwilliam. The house and offices, valued at £5, were situated in over 43 acres of land spread over two plots. A further outbuilding abutting the first had been added by the third edition of 1903. John McKnight, described as a comparatively well-off farmer, died on 21 April 1885, leaving a fortune of £1,116 2s 6d. The house remained in the McKnight family; James O McKnight was the occupier in 1891 and by 1901 farmer James R McKnight was the head of the household at age 26, living with his two younger sisters and a male farm servant. The house comprised eight rooms and was designated second class, a wide category covering most structures between mansion and thatched vernacular dwelling. The house had nine outbuildings. By 1911 James's younger sister Jane was living in the house with a boarder, a female school teacher from County Tyrone.

The house subsequently passed to the Megaw family, first to Thomas and then to Hugh Megaw in 1930. In the early 1930s the building was revalued at £4 and the agricultural outbuildings at £1 15s. At that time the accommodation comprised two receptions, a kitchen, scullery and pantry on the ground floor, and four bedrooms and a box room on the first floor. The outbuildings, forming two sides of a courtyard to the rear of the house, comprised a stable, byre and cowshed with loft over, a cart shed, a calfshed and a store. An inspection in 1935 following an appeal noted that the house was on an 'out farm' and was only used during the harvesting season. Two rooms on the first floor were uninhabitable owing to poor repair and defective floors. The ground floor rooms were used for storing farm implements and housing young fowl, and the building was described as being of little more value than an office in its then-present condition.

In the 1970s, at the time of the first survey, the house appeared to be well-maintained. However, it has been altered in subsequent years and is now vacant. The building is a good example of its type that is becoming rare in the district.