4 Trummery Lane, Trummery, Maghaberry, Craigavon, Co. Antrim, BT67 0JN

4 Trummery Lane, Trummery

This thatched house sits on the east side of Trummery Lane, facing south, accessed between a pair of traditional gate pillars at the end of a short street. The lane proceeds northerly from the Moira to Lisburn road, crosses the railway line, and reaches the house approximately one and a half miles from Moira. The building is of exceptional historical and architectural significance as it is believed to be the only surviving structure retaining a continuous cruck truss in Ireland, with evidence of the remains of a second similar member. The associated timberwork, including the bressumer, is of high interest. Similar cruck trusses from Glenavy and Corbally have been relocated to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum. Remains of a datestone indicate the house was built in 1629, making it possibly the only known structure to survive from the very first years of the Plantation, as all other so-called "Plantation" houses date from after the 1641 Rebellion.

The house appears single-storey but originally provided accommodation within the loft, with fenestration by means of wide eaves windows only about six inches deep. The stone walls have a roughcast and whitened finish. The roof is thatched beneath a covering of corrugated iron. Two corbelled-topped chimneystacks stand on the ridgeline, with the hearth chimney positioned longitudinally.

The south frontage is gabled to the lane. The entrance is flanked on the left (west) by two plain sashed vertically sliding windows lighting the parlour and a further top-hung window lighting a bedroom at the extreme left. To the right (east) of the entrance are two further plain sashed vertically sliding windows. The openings are without sills. The west gable fronting the roadside contains a timber sheeted door but is otherwise unpierced.

At the rear, the sequence of openings from right (west) comprises: a fixed window with horizontal division lighting a bedroom; a blocked opening; a double pair of nine-pane windows in the kitchen wall; and a metal-framed window with vertical division lighting an end bedroom.

Adjacent structures extend along the street first as a dwelling (No. 3 Trummery Lane) with modern roof construction and then as a barn with traditional roof construction of rough-hewn scantlings, uncleaned twigs, scraws and thatch beneath corrugated iron.

The first valuation of 1834 describes the building as thatched with dimensions similar to those currently existing, with a rateable value of £3.2.6. John Wilson was the owner at that date. The building was noted as being in good condition and already of considerable age. A single-storey barn and stone outbuilding are documented. The house appears on Ordnance Survey maps as "Aughnagary". Architectural historians including Alan Gailey note that no imported hearth-lobby British vernacular houses that developed into an Irish form survive from the early seventeenth century, with the cruck house at Trummery potentially the earliest remaining example.