Former dwelling adjacent to 62 Corliss Road, Teer, Cullyhanna, Co Armagh BT35 9BB

Former Dwelling, Teer, Cullyhanna, Co Armagh

A linear vernacular dwelling built around 1830, located on a sloping site to the immediate north of 62 Corliss Road, approximately 3 miles southwest of Cullyhanna and less than 1 mile from the border with the Republic of Ireland.

The building comprises two sections of different heights: a single-storey section to the west and a storey-and-a-half section to the east. The slope of the site creates this variation in height. The plan form follows the hearth-lobby type characteristic of Irish vernacular house construction, with entry through a breakfront porch into the kitchen, which leads into a further room to the west with a former hearth.

The pitched natural slate roof features angled ridge tiles and carries two red brick chimneystacks, one positioned approximately in the middle of the western section and the other at the west end of the eastern section. The eaves are plain with replacement uPVC rainwater goods. The walling is painted render over rubble stone.

The south-facing front elevation is asymmetrical and contains four doors, the central one having a projecting slate breakfront porch. Three fixed-pane windows with timber surrounds feature a mixture of glass and plastic panes. The west elevation is painted rubble with a former entrance to the centre, now infilled with a timber lintel. The north (rear) elevation is asymmetrical with a mixture of timber and plastic windows, some with metal grille coverings, and a timber sheeted hay door to the eastern end. The east elevation is painted rubble with a central window opening at second storey, now infilled.

Internally, remnants of thatch are evident above the timber sheeted ceiling, supporting the building's significance as an increasingly rare typology. Some original historic features remain in place.

The property is bounded to the front by rendered and painted rubble walling with saddle-backed coping. Decorative gate piers with pyramidal coping support wrought-iron gates. A painted rubble wall with a painted wrought-iron gate runs along the east side, enclosing a garden area.

A painted and rendered brick and masonry outbuilding with a pitched corrugated roof stands to the south-west.

The cottage appears on the First Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1835 as an L-shaped plan with an additional linear structure immediately to the south. By the Second Edition map of 1861, the cottage had been remodelled to a rectangular plan, with the secondary structure replaced by two smaller rectangular-plan buildings. These two buildings remained into the twentieth century but had been demolished by the Fourth Edition map of 1956. The Third Edition map (1846–62) shows the cottage extending further east, suggesting that the eastern portion was added around that time.

Griffith's Valuation records identify the owner as Thomas P. Ball Esq. and the occupier as Edward Duffy, with a total value of £5, 10 shillings, 0 pence. The Duffy family occupied a number of properties in the surrounding area and remains in possession of the cottage and the modern bungalow opposite. According to the owner of 62 Corliss Road, the cottage was last inhabited in the 1950s and is now used for storage.

The setting is rural, with a twentieth-century bungalow to the south and a mono-pitched modern concrete and steel structure with rolling shutter to the west of the bungalow, sharing a tarmac and concrete yard and driveway leading to the road.