151 The Rock Road, Ballynahone Beg, Armagh, BT60 3NR

This is a vernacular farmhouse with two attached outbuildings, forming a good and increasingly rare example of an unspoiled rural farmstead complete with its original enclosure and field boundaries. The dwelling was remodelled around 1880, at which point the first floor was added. The complex is notable for retaining many original features, including the wainscot dado, logie window in the lobby, staircase, hearth, windows, and an intact purlin roof.

The three buildings are arranged along a north-south axis, set on a gentle west-to-east slope at the end of a very long lane. They sit within an old tree-lined enclosure, now largely surfaced with gravel, which forms part of a network of small fields and paddocks that survive mostly unchanged from at least the 1830s. The building does not appear to have been occupied since at least the 1980s.

THE DWELLING

The dwelling occupies the north end of the range. It is a two-storey, gable-ended, two-bay lobby-entry farmhouse. The roof is double-pitched, slated, and in sound condition, with plain verges and no gutters along the eaves. A centrally placed brick chimney sits atop the roof but has no chimney-pots. The walls are harled and whitened: the lower storey is built of random rubble, while the upper storey walls, which are noticeably thinner, are of brick.

The east-facing front elevation is symmetrically composed, with the centrally placed entrance flanked on each side by a rectangular window fitted with a sliding sash containing two horizontal panes. The two upper-floor windows on the front are slightly shorter in height: their upper sash is fixed and contains two horizontal panes, while the lower sash has a single horizontal pane and slides without weights. All four windows on the rear elevation are of the same type as the first-floor front windows, except for the rear kitchen window, which is a modern replacement. There is no back door.

The front door is centrally placed and sheltered by a narrow windbreak built around its outer edge, with a brick eaves corbel and a lean-to slate roof above. The rear wall of the house is supported by four equally spaced buttresses, all rendered in cement and of 20th-century date. There are no openings in the north end gable.

THE CENTRAL OUTHOUSE

This is a two-storey, one-bay unit, two windows wide on each side, covered by a double-pitched corrugated iron roof. Its roofline rises above both the dwelling to the north and the byre to the south. The north gable wall contains a short brick chimney serving the fireplace in the parlour of the adjacent dwelling. The west wall is whitened and partly harled, and is largely of brick, with the lower portions in random rubble. The east front, by contrast, is largely random rubble, with brick used only in the upper part.

The ground floor interior of this unit sits approximately two feet below external ground level. The first floor is reached by a flight of concrete and concrete block steps, leading to a batten door at the north end. At the south end of the first floor is a matching opening fitted with batten half-doors, now blocked internally. Below this opening is a small window without a frame. Beneath the steps, a low batten door gives access to the ground floor. On the east front, a door on the north side provides entry to the building; it is flanked by a window, and two small long rectangular openings at first-floor level are all without window frames.

THE END OUTHOUSE

This is a two-storey, gable-ended, one-bay byre unit with a double-pitched corrugated iron roof and parapeted verges. The walls are entirely of randomly coursed rubble, and the whole structure appears to be of one build. The east-facing wall is whitened and harled; the west wall and gable wall are unwhitened and have not been harled for a considerable time.

At the centre of the end gable, at first-floor level, is a blocked doorway with a small timber-framed opening in its upper part. The east front has a centrally placed door opening flanked on its north side by a very small rectangular opening with a light timber frame; a short rectangular window without a surviving frame sits immediately above the door. The ghost impression of a former lean-to structure is visible against the wall face. The west wall has a single ground-floor opening, a door positioned south of centre, and a single first-floor opening, a door at the north end.

HISTORY

A house is shown in this vicinity on Rocque's map of 1760, though it is difficult to establish with certainty whether this corresponds to the present structure. By the time of the Ordnance Survey map of 1835, a building with a footprint approximating the one seen today is clearly shown. It does not appear in the near-contemporary first valuation, suggesting it was probably single-storey at that point. In the second valuation of around 1862, it is listed with Patrick McKenna as occupant and Colonel Pringle as immediate lessor; the rateable value of the property was £1 5s. The valuers noted the building was in very bad repair but unfortunately recorded no dimensions.

Following Patrick McKenna's death, the house passed to Thomas McKenna in 1880. In the same year the rateable value rose by ten shillings, which strongly suggests that improvements were carried out around that date — most likely the addition of the upper storey. A small lean-to extension appears to have been added to the east side of the house in the early 20th century, though this was not considered significant enough to be noted in the valuations. The freehold of the property was acquired by the McKenna family in the 1930s or 1940s, and a Thomas McKenna was recorded as occupying the house until at least 1972. The surrounding fields and enclosures largely correspond to those shown on the Ordnance Survey map of the 1830s.