64 Cornacully Road, Tievbunnan, Belcoo, Co. Fermanagh, BT93 5BT

A well-preserved thatched house of the late nineteenth century, located near the end of Cornacully Road in remote moorland north of Belcoo. The building is of significant interest for its rarity, visual quality, and importance as an example of vernacular rural architecture from this period. The survival of the historic farmyard setting and traditional barn add further character and value.

The house is a single-storey, three-bay structure aligned approximately north to south, with direct entry and gables. It is constructed in rubble stone with roughly squared blocks and carefully cut corner stones, rendered in wet dash and painted. The thatch roof is covered in rye straw with scallop fixings visible only at the ridge and gables. Three lines of hazel rods (liggers) are fixed along the ridge with stitching along the gables. Sand cement parging at the gables and chimneys, finished in white paint to match the main building, rises approximately 100mm above the thatch. The thatch is cut parallel to the slope of the roof at the eaves.

The building sits at a slightly lower level than the adjacent road, separated by a short informal garden of roughly four metres depth. The ground slopes noticeably, dropping steeply on the west side. The front (east) elevation faces away from the farmyard onto a small stone-flagged paved area. It features three two-over-two sash windows, one to each structural bay, with each window slightly lower than its neighbour due to the downward slope of the ground. A painted sheeted door with stone upstands to the base of the frame is positioned to the south of the central bay. Two chimneys on the ridge rise from the internal walls. The southern bay is narrower than the other two by approximately two metres.

The rear (west) elevation has a projecting porch in the central bay, set opposite the main entrance and projecting half a metre, with the thatch dressed down over it following the roof slope. The door below matches that to the east with similar stone jambs. A single one-over-one sash window is located in the centre of the southern bay. The northern gable is blank.

A modern perpendicular extension in natural slate has been added at the southern gable, designed by McNulty Architectural Design of Belcoo and approved in 1990. It has a much lower ridge level and is set back from the corner of the façade. The extension projects four metres in front of the main elevation and matches the render and eaves height of the original building. It features a flush slate detail to the gable with corbelled eaves. A single painted casement window is positioned below the gable detail. The south side has two casement windows, and the west elevation has a similar arrangement with a central casement window below a flush gable, aligning with the west façade of the historic building.

A thatched barn to the rear forms a traditional farmyard street between itself and the house. Similarly painted and whitewashed, with stone rubble construction, the barn's gable is parallel to the northern gable of the house and approximates to one bay of its length. A central sheeted door gives access. A small window of approximately 300mm by 300mm is located to the rear, and a metal casement window is on the northern gable. The barn is thatched in the same manner as the house.

The building is first recorded on the Ordnance Survey of 1908 and is considered to date from the late nineteenth century. An earlier map from 1908 shows a narrower extension to the barn which extended its length to match the main house. This extension remained until the 1970s when it was removed to provide access to new farmyard structures. It had been a lower building with a laterally corrugated tin roof. Another barn parallel to the front of the house and slightly to the south, shown on the same map, was replaced during the recent renovation.

The building was listed in 1988. In 1989, work was carried out to rethatch both the building and barn, with the roof repaired over the north bay and completely rethatched from the scraws upwards in that area. The barn was substantially repaired and rethatched. The thatch was described as rushes, which is water reed from the nearby Lough Erne. A 1990 survey noted that the interior had a similar plan to its current arrangement, but the central bay was subdivided by a stud partition providing a lobby for the two entrances, which were separated by a second stud wall.

The extension was constructed between 1994 and 1995 with grant aid from Historic Buildings and the Northern Ireland Housing Executive. Historic Buildings comments were incorporated into the design approval. The historic building was rethatched in rye straw to the rear (west elevation) and the barn in 1994. The interior was replastered and damp-proofed, and a new tongue and groove ceiling was erected. A sash window was inserted on the rear of the southern bay. The front of the dwelling was rethatched in rye in 1995. In 2003, following survey, the building was thatched again in rye. All work since 1989 has been fixed with hazel scallops.