6 Lisnagree Road, Poyntzpass, Newry, Co Armagh, BT35 6FP

6 Lisnagree Road, Poyntzpass — Vernacular Farmhouse

This is a two-storey, three-bay direct-entry vernacular farmhouse predating 1833, located on the south side of Lisnagree Road approximately four miles south-west of Poyntzpass, County Armagh. It is a good and increasingly rare example of a developed vernacular farmhouse of the "strong farmer" type, retaining its early character, proportion and styling. The interiors preserve their general character and the building layout has been retained. The outbuildings, stone boundary walling, gates and piers all contribute to the historic rural setting. The listing extends to the house, gates, piers and outbuildings.

Architectural Description

The house faces approximately east onto a farmyard, with an outbuilding to the south-east. It has a pitched natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles and concrete-tiled verges, three brick chimney stacks on the front block, and one on the gable of the rear return. Walls are painted roughcast over lime render over stone.

Front (east) elevation: A four-bay façade with a porch positioned right of centre. To the left are remnants of a formerly attached section with a low, timber-sheeted door. There is a single window opening to either side of the porch and three window openings at first-floor level; all are boarded over apart from the top-left opening, which retains a 1-over-1 timber sliding sash window. The porch has a pitched natural slate roof and a wide arched fanlight with naïve coloured lights over the door opening, with boarded-over sidelights. A scalloped timber fascia runs across the front of the porch. The porch walls are lined and ruled render. The south face of the porch has a 1-over-1 margin-pane timber sliding sash window with an arched head; the north face has a boarded-over door opening with an arched head.

South elevation: The gable retains remnants of a former pitched roof return. There is a door opening with remnants of a timber-and-glazed door, and a single blocked-up window opening at first-floor level right of centre. The south side of the rear return was partially visible at the time of survey and shows a ground-floor door opening and a first-floor window opening retaining the remains of a 1-over-1 timber sliding sash window with an exposed sash box.

Rear (west) elevation: The front block has a single boarded-over door opening at ground-floor level with a boarded-over window opening aligned directly above. A two-storey return projects left of centre. The rear (west) face of the return is a blind gable with a chimney stack topped by two decorative yellow clay pots; random stonework, brick chimney flue and lime render are all visible on this gable. The rear face of the front block, to the right of the return and partially visible at the time of survey, has a 2-over-2 timber sliding sash window at first-floor level and two partially visible door openings at ground-floor level.

North elevation: The front block presents a blind façade. The rear return has two boarded-over window openings at ground-floor level and a single boarded-over window opening at first-floor level.

Materials summary: Windows are mostly boarded over; the few remaining examples are timber sliding sash with single glazing. Walls are a mixture of painted roughcast over lime render over stone, with lined and ruled render to the porch. The roof is natural slate with black clay ridge tiles. Rainwater goods on the front elevation comprise a cast-iron gutter to the left side and remnants of further cast-iron guttering.

Setting

The north gable of the house sits directly onto a grass verge at the roadside. The boundary walling is rubblestone. A wrought-iron pedestrian gate leads to the porch, with a cement-rendered pier and capping stone to the right side of the yard entrance. Wrought-iron gates and piers are present to the side, rear and across the road, with the piers set on the diagonal. To the south side of the house are the remnants of a stone outbuilding. On the east side is a corrugated iron-sheeted, barrel-vaulted hay shed with a lean-to section onto the grass verge, rubblestone walling and a corrugated iron roof. An attractively sited stone outbuilding with red brick detailing and a pitched natural slate roof sits on the south-east side of the yard, with a taller section to its north side.

Historical Development

The original dwelling on this site predates the first Ordnance Survey edition of 1835. The house was raised and extended between 1861 and 1906, and a number of outbuildings were added, including a surviving detached outbuilding to the south-east that dates to between 1906 and 1911.

The first edition map of 1835 shows a building of vernacular proportions, roughly 70 feet in length, positioned at right angles to the adjacent road. By the second edition of 1861, the structure had diminished in size to roughly 40 feet. In Griffith's Valuation of 1862, the house is listed as the dwelling of Thomas Finch, valued at £1.10, indicating a simple single-storey vernacular dwelling leased from the local landlord Maxwell Close of Drumbanagher House.

The precise development of the house is not entirely clear from the surviving evidence. One plausible sequence is that the original single-storey house became a side extension to a new two-storey, two-bay house built between 1861 and 1906, with part of the original single-storey house subsequently raised — before 1911 — to form a third two-storey bay. An alternative possibility is that the single-storey house was extended northwards after 1861 and then raised in stages: first the two right-hand bays and then the left-hand bay.

The current owners have relayed a story passed down through the family that the Finch family offered accommodation to Welsh navvies who worked on the nearby Lissummon railway tunnel (constructed between 1861 and 1864). The course of that tunnel passes less than 100 metres from the house, which lies approximately a third of the way from the north-west entrance. The workers are said to have occupied the left-hand bay of the house — likely the original dwelling — and it is thought that some of the stone used to build the tunnel may also have been used in improvements to the house around this time.

The 1901 census records Thomas Alex Finch, a 71-year-old farmer, as resident with his wife (who worked as a seamstress), his son William James (a rate collector), his daughter-in-law (also a seamstress), and four young grandchildren. Two servants also lived in the house: a young man from Armagh working as a farm labourer and a 16-year-old boy from Scotland employed as a general servant. The dwelling was described as slated with five windows to the front elevation and seven rooms, confirming that the current two-storey house had been built by 1901, although this change did not appear in valuation records until 1911.

The new dwelling with its rear extension is shown on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1906. In 1911 the valuation was raised from £1.10 to £8, and a further rise came in 1918 when new outbuildings became rateable, giving a final combined valuation of £10 for house and outbuildings. The valuer's notebook of 1911 describes the house and outbuildings as "improved" and notes that the main dwelling had been "raised" and that a new two-storey extension had been built to the rear. A single-storey annexe to the south elevation — understood to be a remnant of the previous dwelling and/or its outbuildings, now gone although its outline remains visible — is also noted as "improved". The house at this date had a complex plan that included an L-shaped projection to the front elevation, now lost. The accommodation recorded in 1911 comprised two kitchens, two sitting rooms and four bedrooms. Farm buildings included a byre for six cows, a stable for three horses and a shed for eight bullocks. Two detached outbuildings visible between the second and third Ordnance Survey editions do not appear to have survived; a new outbuilding post-dating the third edition of 1906 and shown in the 1911 valuer's notebook does survive to the south-east of the site. The large hay barn to the east of the site is also identified in the 1911 valuer's notebook as having been added around that time; its roof was originally supported by Belfast trusses, but these were lost in a storm in recent years (owner information).

By the 1911 census, Thomas had died and his son William James Finch had taken over the farm. William also owned the nearby property "Fir Grove" (HB16/21/103), which he had taken over around 1904, although the primary sources indicate that the current dwelling remained the family's main home. William and his wife had added four more children by 1911 and now employed three servants: a domestic, a labourer and a "cowboy". The census records the house as having five windows to the front elevation and nine rooms, broadly consistent with the 1901 description. The front elevation originally had a projection to the left-hand bay which may have obscured the ground-floor window, or the sixth window opening may have been a later addition. William James Finch became the outright owner of the house in 1909 under the Land Purchase Acts. Despite his profession as Collector of the Poor Rate for Newry No. 2 District, he was well regarded locally; his funeral in 1928 was reported in the newspapers for the "enormous dimensions" of the funeral cortege. When William was forced to resign owing to ill-health in 1926, his son Henry Samuel was appointed in his place by a majority of fifteen by Armagh County Council. Another of William's sons, Alfred John — recorded as six months old in the 1911 census — became a rector. Alfred John's biography in Clergy of Down and Dromore notes that he was born at a house called "Rose Hollow", which is likely to be the current building. He was educated at the Royal School, Dungannon and at Trinity College Dublin, and eventually became Rector of Tyrella and Rathmullan (1943–55) and then Knocknamuckley (1955–75).

At the time of the First General Revaluation in 1933, Henry Samuel Finch, William's son, was in residence. The dwelling was described as a "good house. Good finish and repair." Floors were tiled and boarded and ceilings were of plaster. The accommodation comprised two kitchens, a reception room, scullery, store and pantry downstairs, and a reception room and three bedrooms upstairs. A plan and dimensions were recorded for the house and outbuildings, showing that the front projection and the side annexe were by then in use as agricultural outbuildings. Henry contested the valuation in 1935, stating that the house was "over 100 years built." The valuer described it as an "old fashioned comfortable farmhouse… in very good order inside, the outside is not so good." At that time the house had no water supply and drinking water had to be brought by cart. Further outbuildings were added to the rear of the house between 1906 and 1933, and again between 1933 and 1955; none of these additional structures have survived.

By 1943, Henry had moved out of the house owing to its internal condition and into another nearby dwelling, most likely "Fir Grove", though he continued to use the farm outbuildings. Off the kitchen was a stove room housing a milk separator; harness and farm implements were stored in the outbuildings. Some rooms were being used for grain storage by this time. The valuer assessed the structure as good but noted that some floors had dry rot. By 1944, the house was let to a workman, William Pollock, while Henry Finch retained one ground-floor room as a dairy and used some upper rooms to store grain.

Eric Ewart became the outright owner of the house in 1956, and the house has since passed to new owners. The dwelling is currently uninhabited (as of 2025) and has been so for some years. The current owners relocated the original boundary wall to the house in 2020–21; it now lies within a few feet of its former position.