Survey Data
Reg No
40818015
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Social
Original Use
House
In Use As
House
Date
1900 - 1920
Coordinates
219055, 426539
Date Recorded
07/01/2011
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached three-bay single-storey with attic level former local authority house, built c. 1910, having projecting gable-fronted single-bay entrance porch to the south-west end of the front elevation (south-east). Now out of use. One of a group of fourteen such detached former social authority houses built along the Kilmacrennan Road. Pitched natural slate roof with central red brick chimneystack having flat rendered coping over. Pitched natural slate roof to entrance porch. Roughcast rendered walls. Square-headed window openings with concrete sills, and with two-over-two pane timber sliding sash windows. Square-headed doorway to porch having replacement timber panelled door. Set back from road in own grounds in to the south-west of the centre of Milford with garden and gravelled forecourt to front (south-east) and bounded on road-frontage by hedging. Laneway to the north-east side bounded by wire fence with timber posts.
Appraisal
This modest house, of early twentieth-century date, retains much of its early form and character. It survives in good condition despite being currently unoccupied. Its visual appeal and integrity are enhanced by the retention of salient fabric such as the natural slate roof and timber sliding sash windows. Its form suggests that it was originally built as part of a local authority social housing scheme, and this is one of fourteen such houses located along the Kilmacrennan Road to the south-west of the centre of Milford. This type of local authority housing originated at the end of the nineteenth century with the establishment of public bodies such as the county councils, rural district councils, Congested Districts Board (in western Donegal) and later the Land Commission. A great many houses of this type (over 50,000) were built throughout Ireland following the passing of the various Land and Labourers' Acts (c. 1883-1921) by the British Parliament in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, and they are a feature of the rural Irish countryside and the outskirts of towns and villages. It is well-built to a conscious architectural design, which is basically an 'improved' interpretation of the vernacular housing of the time. Each had a small allotment of c. 0.2 hectares, such as is seen at this particular example. The majority of these local authority houses are now heavily altered, as is the case along Kilmacrennan Road to the south-west of Milford, which makes this a rare surviving relatively intact example of its type. Another good surviving example can be seen a short distance to the south-west (see 40818014). This modest structure is an interesting part of the social history of the Milford area, and is a modest addition of the built heritage of the local area.