Slate Quarry House, Rathfriland Road, Dromara, Co Down, BT32 3RN

Slate Quarry House is a symmetrical two-storey, three-bay farmhouse of vernacular character, constructed between approximately 1800 and 1819 and first recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833. It stands just south of the town of Dromara, on the west side of Rathfriland Road, in the townland of Crossgar. The building is a good example of a developed vernacular farmhouse that was subsequently formalised and embellished with later 19th century alterations and decorations. Its plan form has largely remained unaltered from its original configuration, though a flat-roofed rear extension and other replacement fabric detract from its historic integrity and authenticity, and the modified outbuildings make only a peripheral contribution to the setting.

Architectural Description

The house has a rectangular plan with a rear return and a modern conservatory. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with clay ridge tiles, cast-iron rainwater goods, and smooth rendered chimneystacks with moulded cornice courses and clay pots. The external walls are finished in ruled-and-lined render with stucco mouldings and long-and-short rusticated quoins at the corners.

The windows are replacement 8-over-8 timber sliding sash with horns, set into moulded surrounds with extended cills. The first-floor windows are slightly reduced in height compared to those on the ground floor. The front door is a replacement four-panelled timber door with bolection mouldings and modern ironmongery, flanked by replacement side lights with glazing bars and a panelled apron below. Above is a fanlight with margin glazing bars. The whole doorcase is set into a segmental-arched opening with moulded surrounds and plinth stops, approached by a modern tiled step.

The principal elevation faces east and is symmetrically arranged, with the front door centrally positioned and one window to either side on the ground floor. Three first-floor windows sit directly above the ground-floor openings. The left gable has a single replacement uPVC casement window at attic level. A single-storey gabled garage with a metal door and casement window abuts the west elevation at ground-floor level.

The rear elevation is asymmetrically arranged and dominated by a large two-storey extension. All window openings on this elevation have been replaced with uPVC casements. At ground floor there is one window to the left bay, with first-floor windows to the left and right. The extension has a variety of fenestration, is abutted by a modern conservatory, and is of no historic interest. It is accessed by a modern door to the north. The right gable has a single replacement uPVC casement window at attic level, positioned right of centre.

Setting

The house is largely screened from the road by trees lining the site parallel to Rathfriland Road. Access is through a replacement electronic gate fixed to monolithic granite piers with pointed heads. The driveway is short and straight, lined with hedgerows and trees, leading to a garden with trees to the front. A timber fence bounds the site to the north, and a modern rubble-effect wall runs along the eastern boundary.

To the rear there is a yard accessed by a modern gate. Two long single-storey roughcast outbuildings with pitched corrugated-iron roofs stand to the west. Adjoining the right gable of the dwelling is a smaller single-storey painted rubble masonry outbuilding with an elliptical-arched opening with masonry voussoirs, now infilled with blockwork, and a matching corrugated-iron roof. A rubble masonry wall adjoins this outbuilding.

Historical Notes

The house is believed by family tradition to have been built by the McKenny family around 1800, when they established themselves in the townland of Crossgar. It first appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1833, by which time the two surviving western outbuildings had also been constructed, though the house at that date lacked its south-facing single-storey extension. In the 1830s the site was valued at £8 and was occupied by Agnes McKenny. Agnes McKenny remained at the farm until her death in 1858, after which the property passed to her grandson John McKenny (PRONI Wills).

By the time of the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1859, there had been little change to the site, though it appears the south-facing single-storey extension had been added between 1833 and 1859. Griffith's Valuation of around 1861 recorded John McKenny as occupant, noting that he leased the farm — valued at slightly over £9 — from a Mr. Hutchinson Boyd. John McKenny, employed solely as a farmer, remained at Crossgar until his death in 1888, after which his widow Margaret took possession. She successfully appealed against the rating, and the valuation was subsequently reduced to £5.

By the 1901 Census, Margaret McKenny (aged 62, Roman Catholic) was living alone at Crossgar. The census building return classified the farmhouse as a second-class dwelling with four rooms, and recorded a stable, two cow houses, a piggery, and a barn among its farm offices, located in the two main outbuildings to the west of the house. Margaret McKenny vacated the farm in 1911 and moved to a new dwelling in the same townland, letting the farm to a Mr. Campbell McCrory. The 1911 Census recorded McCrory, a 58-year-old Presbyterian farmer, living there with his wife Martha Anne (aged 56), with no notable change to the farmhouse since 1901. In 1911 McCrory also came into possession of a house to the north of the McKenny farmhouse, also owned by Margaret McKenny, which had previously served as the medical dispensary for Dromara. The McCrory family continued to occupy the former dispensary until the end of the Annual Revisions, but McCrory vacated the McKenny farmhouse in 1918 when Michael McKenny retook possession. Michael McKenny died in 1922, and the farm passed to his brother James Henry McKenny, the last member of the family to occupy the house. James Henry McKenny died in 1925, after which the house came into the possession of Michael O'Reilly, who was listed as occupant until the end of the Annual Revisions in 1929.

The house is locally known as Slate Quarry House, a name recorded by Patrick McKenny, a descendant of the original occupants. According to McKenny, the name derives from a slate quarry located on the estate of the Marquis of Downshire near the Parish Church of Dromara. That quarry was worked during the 18th century, though by the time of the Ordnance Survey in 1834 none of the local slate quarries were still in operation. Family tradition holds that upon establishing the house at Crossgar around 1800, John McKenny (husband of Agnes McKenny recorded in the Townland Valuations) entered into a rights-of-use agreement with the Lord Viscount Dungannon to extract slate from a quarry opened on his land. The precise location of this quarry is unknown and no quarry appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey maps of 1833 in proximity to the McKenny land. By 1819 the commercial viability of the quarry had reportedly diminished and McKenny wished to end the agreement; John McKenny died in the 1820s.

Following James Henry McKenny's death, Slate Quarry House was sold at public auction. The O'Reilly family of Dromara purchased it in 1926 but between 1926 and the 1950s rarely occupied it themselves, instead letting it to various tenants. In the 1950s the house was restored after having fallen into a state of disrepair. The building was listed in 1976. The dwelling is currently occupied as a private house.