Thursday Doors – Cottage

Welcome to the first of July’s Thursday Doors and it’s a lovely wee cottage that features this week. It’s not too far from where I live so I get to see it quite often. You can see from the bottom window on the gable that the red brick surround is embedded in the wall but the rest of the windows are different.

This looks very like a Model Plan D cottage. In Ireland, under a series of acts from 1883 to 1936, these cottages were specifically designed to improve the living conditions of agricultural labourers, local authorities were involved in locating and compulsorily purchasing sites, building cottages and housing people. You can see a copy of the plan here. Nearby on a crossroad stands another old house with the line of an archway still visible on its facade. It’s part of a group of buildings described as a smithys (blacksmith) on an early 1800’s map of the area. This probably explains the large arch that may have been for coach access and why it’s situated on a crossroad.

Thanks for stopping by this week. There are lots more Thursday Doors over on Norm’s blog waiting to be seen, just click on the links in the comments at the end of his post.