6 Springtown Road, Derrynascobe, Augher, Co Tyrone, BT77 0AE

6 Springtown Road, Derrynascobe, Augher, Co Tyrone

A well-preserved single-storey thatched house dating from approximately 1780–1799, comprising three structural bays with a lobby entry plan. The building is significant as a rare and attractive example of vernacular architecture, notable for its survival, historic roof structure, and traditional plan form.

The house presents as a rendered and whitewashed structure with an unrendered brick entrance porch projection with flat roof positioned centrally on the façade. The porch contains a sheeted entrance door with a square window above. Three windows light the main façade—one in each bay—with a window to the kitchen on the north-west elevation slightly enlarged to accommodate a metal casement; the remaining windows are two-pane sliding sash. Stone cills are painted and colour is carried around the windows on an unadorned render architrave. Exposed timber lintels on the rear south-west elevation are unpainted and require replacement. A single modern red-brick chimney sits on the ridge, lined with the entrance door, with concrete flaunching onto thatch.

An attached barn abuts the south-west gable, smaller in both width and height than the main house and set at a slight angle to it. The barn walls are rendered with successive layers of whitewash, revealing trace of stone construction beneath. The barn is roofed in corrugated metal and has a flush-painted timber door immediately adjacent to the front façade of the house.

The roof structure is historic. The end gables are carried up the side of the thatch with exposed, weathered tops. A deep build-up of thatch at the eaves measures approximately 500 millimetres. Crisscross hazel ligger form a stitching pattern at eaves level, with top and bottom lines, but no pattern at the ridge. The roof is currently scallop-thatched with wheat straw, the thatch being re-laid by the owner in 1993.

A small single-pane window lights the attic. A sheugh (drainage ditch) runs along the rear of the house, separating the building from the nearby road approximately three metres above floor level, with a 450-millimetre-wide cemented base behind the house and a muddy base behind the barn.

The building is situated below the curve of Springtown Road, facing away from it. Two entrances serve the site: a steep entrance forms the north-eastern boundary, dropping along the north-eastern gable and continuing downhill to the farm beyond; a second, gentler entrance follows the line of the road at the corner and descends to the farmyard between the house, barn, and a lower row of metal-roofed barns. An outbuilding perpendicular to the house forms one side of a simple courtyard directly in front of the building.

The house appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1834 but was not recorded in the contemporary valuation. It was documented in the second valuation of 1858, when Owen Donnelly leased the house from Francis Smith at a rateable value of 15 shillings. The building was listed in 1991. The property remained in the Hearts family before the 1930s, when the current owner's father purchased the farm; the Donnellys had occupied it prior to that, with Breckenridge as landlord.