Survey Data
Reg No
40909216
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Technical
Original Use
House
In Use As
House
Date
1900 - 1920
Coordinates
181657, 377960
Date Recorded
12/10/2007
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Detached four-bay single-storey vernacular house, built c. 1910, having single-bay flat-roofed addition/shed attached to the south-west gable end. Pitched straw thatched roof, recently renewed, having three rendered chimneystacks (one to either gable end and one offset to the north-east side of centre). Render verges to gable ends. Metal pegs below eaves (for securing ropes over thatch) to the front and rear elevation (south-east). Smooth-rendered walls having smooth rendered pilaster strips to the corners of the front elevation. Square-headed window openings with replacement timber casement windows, render reveals and painted sills. Square-headed door opening, offset to the south-west side of centre, having replacement timber battened half-doors and rendered reveal. Square-headed doorway to the south-west elevation of addition\shed to the south-west gable end having battened timber door. Set back from road in elevated location a short distance to the north of Inver and Inver Bay. Coursed roughly-square rubble dry stone walling to the road-frontage to the south-east having modern rubble stone or rubble stone-clad wall over. Garden to front of site. House overlooks Inver Bay to the south-east.
Appraisal
Despite some recent alterations, this appealing thatched vernacular house retains much of its early character and form, and is an attractive feature in the scenic landscape overlooking Inver Bay. Modest in scale, it exhibits the simple and functional form of vernacular building in Ireland. Of particular interest in the survival of the thatch roof, although recently renewed, which is now sadly becoming increasingly rare in Donegal. The rounded roof is a typical feature of thatched houses located close to the sea in exposed areas in the north-west of Ireland, while the pegs to the eaves were used to tie ropes (and sometimes nets) over the roof to secure it against the prevailing winds, as is the case here at Inver. The blank rear elevation is another characteristic feature of the extended Irish vernacular tradition. The form of this building – the location of the chimneystacks and their relationship with the main doorway - suggests that this building is of the ‘direct entry’ type that is characteristic of the vernacular tradition in north-west Ireland, and also indicates that this building was extended to the north-east at some stage. This building appears to have been constructed during the first decades of the twentieth century (not on Ordnance Survey third edition six-inch map sheet of 1907), and illustrates that traditional thatched vernacular houses continued to be constructed in Donegal well into the twentieth century. This house represents an interesting surviving example of a once ubiquitous building type in the rural Irish countryside, and is a valuable addition to the vernacular heritage of County Donegal.