House in Benjerstown

Situated in a low-lying landscape and c. 400m W of Siddan church (ME006-056001). According to the Civil Survey (1655) in 1640 Walter Evers owned 172 acres at Bingerstown where there was a stone house and a mill, both described as wasted (Simington 1940, 360). The house mentioned is unlikely to be this structure that is possibly late seventeenth century in date at the earliest. The house is depicted on Taylor and Skinner’s map of the roads of Ireland (1793) when it was owned by a family called Adams (Andrews 1969, 260). It is depicted as roofed on the 1836 edition of the OS 6-inch map, and in Griffith’s Valuation (1848-64) it was leased by a Patrick McGuinness from James Shiels, who was himself the lease-holder of c. 30 acres in Benjerstown from Eliza Adams. Eliza owned about half the townland and lived in a house, now gone, c. 150m to the E on the S side of the road. For the Griffith valuation see this web-page accessed on 18/09/2018: http://www.askaboutireland.ie/griffith-valuation/index.xml The two storey late seventeenth century or early eighteenth century house was recorded in 1984 as a rectangular structure (ext. dims 15.5m N-S; 6.75m E-W) with one doorway and six tall window openings at the ground floor on the E side and a single light and a blocked doorway on the W wall. The E doorway led into the central of three rooms but only those to N and S have round-backed fireplaces with some brick in the gable walls. The walls were 0.6m thick and the joists for the first floor were set directly into the long walls. There was a return (int. dim. 5.5m E-W) attached to the W at the centre but not extending the full length of the house. It was represented by the N wall only and accessed by the blocked doorway from the main house. The first floor of the main house had three rooms but no fireplaces. There were seven tall windows in the E wall and three in the W wall. The N wall of the W part had a fireplace. The walls of the house were reduced (H c. 1m) in July 1991 (Rose 1992).