40 BRONTE ROAD, BALLYNASKEAGH, Banbridge, CO.DOWN

40 Bronte Road is a split-level vernacular house dating from the late 18th century (constructed between approximately 1780 and 1799), situated on the north side of Bronte Road, south-east of Banbridge, in the townland of Ballynaskeagh. It stands directly adjacent to No. 41 Bronte Road and is one of a group of buildings associated with the Brontë family heritage of the area, which carries international literary significance.

The house has a rectangular plan and is built on an incline, opening directly onto a rural country road. It is arranged in two bays at split levels: the left bay rises to one-and-a-half storeys, while the right bay is single storey. The roofs are pitched, with slate covering the left bay and corrugated metal covering the right — the building was originally thatched. Plain brick chimneystacks rise from the gables. There are no rainwater goods. The walls are rubble stone construction with vestiges of limewashed roughcast render remaining, and the road-facing elevation is heavily covered by vegetation.

The windows throughout are metal-framed casements set in plain reveals. The principal elevation faces south-east. To the right side of the right bay there is a windbreak entrance porch with a timber sheeted door and a window to its left. The right bay has a window to each floor, diminishing to attic level. The south-west gable has a window to the ground floor left and an attic window to the right, and supports a fence at its extreme right edge. The rear elevation is largely blank, with the exception of a door covered by metal sheeting at the left side. The north-east gable is blank.

Mid-20th-century alterations have compromised the building to some degree, including the replacement of original windows and chimneypieces, though much historic fabric survives.

The setting is rural: to the north-east lies a modern farmyard and, at a higher level, No. 41 Bronte Road with its associated outbuilding. Marshy grassland lies to the rear.

The building predates 1833, when a structure on the current site was depicted on the first edition Ordnance Survey map. At that time it appeared to form part of a longer building or range of connected outbuildings stretching to the site of the adjacent No. 41. Neither No. 40 nor No. 41 were included in the Townland Valuations of the 1830s, suggesting both were valued at below the £5 minimum threshold. By the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1853, No. 40 had been recorded as a single, separate one-and-a-half-storey cottage situated to the south of No. 41.

Griffith's Valuation of approximately 1862 records the cottage as occupied by a Mr Welsh Brontë, who held the property on a lease from John S. Crawford — a landowner based in Crawfordsburn who held over 5,000 acres in County Down — at a valuation of £1 10s. The adjacent No. 41 was let by Crawford to James Brontë, Welsh's brother, at a valuation of £3 10s. Welsh Brontë continued to reside at No. 40 until his death in 1868, by which time the property had fallen into poor repair and was devalued to £1 by 1873. James Brontë died shortly after his brother in 1870, leaving both properties vacant.

By 1873 the Annual Revision records Nos. 40 and 41 as a combined property under the tenancy of a Mr Thomas McClory, a local farmer. McClory remained until 1885, when his relative Owen McClory took over possession and resided there until his death in 1897 (recorded in the PRONI Wills Catalogue). Despite this, the Annual Revisions continued to list Owen McClory as occupant of both properties up to 1920, when a Mrs Margaret McClory was recorded as tenant. The 1901 and 1911 Census records do not show an Owen McClory residing in the townland of Ballynaskeagh in those years, and the large number of McClory family members in the area makes precise identification on the Census Building Returns difficult. Margaret McClory occupied Nos. 40 and 41 until her death in 1936; her will recorded her as a spinster and it is not known to whom the property passed thereafter.

The historical and literary significance of the building is considerable. Welsh Brontë (1786–1868) and James Brontë (1783–1870) were the younger brothers of the Reverend Patrick Brontë (1777–1861). Patrick, Welsh, and James were the sons of Hugh Brontë and Alice McClory. Hugh Brontë was originally from the townland of Lisnacreevy; when he fell in love with Alice McClory, a Roman Catholic from Ballynaskeagh, the couple eloped and were married in 1776 at Magherally Old Church. They settled in a small single-storey cottage in the townland of Emdel, now a ruin known as the Brontë Memorial House. Their first child, Patrick Brontë, was born there in 1777. He later became schoolmaster of Drumballyroney Schoolhouse before leaving Ireland around 1800 to study at Cambridge for a career in the Church. The Reverend Patrick Brontë had six children, including Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, whose novels — among them Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre — have become seminal works of English literature. Welsh and James Brontë remained in Ballynaskeagh, the townland of their mother's family, for the rest of their lives. Following their deaths, occupation of the site passed back to the McClory family, whose members continued to reside there until Margaret McClory's death in 1936.

It is traditionally believed that No. 40 Bronte Road was the original home of Alice McClory before her marriage to Hugh Brontë in 1776. The house is currently vacant. It was first listed in 1977 and was formerly recorded as HB17/08/018 before being renumbered as part of the Brontë Road group of structures associated with the Brontë Heritage Trail.