# The Gingerbread House, Co. Leitrim



## Ditch (May 5, 2009)

Just take a look at This!







Now, Ye just _Know_ ye Need To get in there, right? Well, Ditch Shitter and Deano; The Detectives of Dereliction, did the work for ye! 






Want to see more? Check out " Explore 4 " on my newly opened, Public, Photobucket Account  Explore 4 Album


See what we saw ..... inside


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## Neosea (May 5, 2009)

Interesting looking house, like the addition of the upper floor.


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## Foxylady (May 5, 2009)

That is just totally delightful. So many lovely details and interesting things. Gorgeous! 
Fab photos, Ditch. Would liked to have seen a few more on the thread, though!


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## Ditch (May 5, 2009)

Neosea; I suspect the top half was added by who ever came to own the estate this property stands on. It's on the Lough Rynn estate, here in Co. Leitrim. A book's recently enough been written about the history of the place. I procrastinated at the time of its release. Now I'm kicking myself! I've just come back from town and won't be back there for days. But I'll grab a copy if one's still available.

Anyway, I believe the owner was a Brit'. That would likely explain the use of red brick on top of the traditional, Irish stone. ..... Hell; I may even sneak back in tomorrow, just to find this damn book! I'm climbing the walls with curiosity now! 

Either way, I'll get it and read it. Bound to tell me shit loads about the area. I'll report back, later, on the strength of that read.


FoxyLady; I have an absolutely dire connection, out here. Means I'm missing the majority of shots displayed on here. They just won't unfurl for me. Those that do take for ever. Thus I'm wary of causing anyone else on 236.8kbs / Vodafone 3G the grief I suffer  That's why I use only '500 x 500' thumbnails, and most of them on my Photobucket. At least, this way, I get to read peoples comments the day they are posted.

Saying that? Dean O', my partner in all this, also has his own selection of shots. I'm not sure how he'll handle it. But we're due to leap frog each other on these threads. Each of us gets to pick an Explore to be first to bring ye. The other is meant to follow up and 'compliment' the thread as ever they can. Meanwhile, I'm up loading more photo's to my bucket,of another Explore, even as I type this 

They wanted Eire? By god; We'll bring them Eire!


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## Neosea (May 5, 2009)

Cool mate, look forward to what you find out!


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## Dean O (May 5, 2009)

Here are some pitchers i took.

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5


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## Foxylady (May 5, 2009)

Ditch said:


> ...I have an absolutely dire connection, out here. Means I'm missing the majority of shots displayed on here...At least, this way, I get to read peoples comments the day they are posted.



Ah, understood! 



Ditch said:


> They wanted Eire? By god; We'll bring them Eire!



Goodo! 

Nice pics, Dean. Cheers.


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## Dean O (May 5, 2009)

*The history of Lough Rynn estate*

*Lord Leitrim was not a bad man - if he got his own way', or so one contemporary writer described the 3rd Earl of Leitrim.*

Lough Rynn Castle, near Mohill, Co. Leitrim, belonged to one of the most notorious landlords of 19th century Ireland: William Sydney Clements, 3rd Earl of Leitrim - or simply Lord Leitrim. While most of this site is about the 3rd Earl of Leitrim, it is also about all the people who lived on and around the Earl's estates and about how they shaped and were shaped by national and local events. 
The Lough Rynn estate
Sydney was obsessed with making Lough Rynn into a model estate. Apart from major building work, Sydney undertook major land reclamation and outlawed the burning of land and the rundale system of farming. Under the rundale system, families pooled resources to rent land, and were each allocated a piece, proportional to their contribution to the pool. Over the years, the pieces of land became smaller and smaller as each family continued to sub-divide their plot. Sydney rightly predicted that this would lead to major problems: the devastation of the famine was exacerbated by tenants left operating farms too small to sustain even one family.
Given his interest in agricultural advances, it is not surprising that Sydney followed a national fashion and founded, in January 1844, the South Leitrim Agricultural Society.
For more on this, see 3rd Earl, Lord Leitrim >>>
Life for the tenants and labourers
Work at Lough Rynn Castle began every morning at 7:30 when the yardman rang the yard bell. He rang it again at midday for lunch and at 5:30 to mark the end of the workday. The workers were kept busy on jobs like planting or working in the stables or steaming potatoes for the pigs. Operators were also needed for farm machinery like the thresher and the steam engine used to power the sawmill. Each week, the workers took their place on the `pay seat' under a porch opposite the offices to wait for their wages. They then stood in turn on a block of cut stone to receive their pay through a tiny window near the door of the coach house. They were paid on a Wednesday to enable them to go to the market or fair day in Mohill on Thursday. A man earned 6d (2½p) for threshing and cleaning a barrel of oats (which later sold for up to 14 shillings (70p) at market); attending cattle or planting laurels would pay 10d (8½p) a day, while pulling turnips would get you only 6d. To put this in context, the entire wages for Lough Rynn estate amounted to about £240 a year; the local schoolmaster earned £30 a year (though the school mistress only got £20); the master of Mohill workhouse was paid £50 plus rations and the nurse's salary was £8. In the shops in Mohill the locals paid 2d for a 1oz bottle of castor oil, a ½d to 3d for a lead pencil, 2sh/8d for a pound of tea, 1d for an egg (3½d for turkey eggs) and 8d for a four pound loaf of bread.
Much of the labourers' work was very seasonal, and some work was not paid at all but went towards the annual rent. From the work that did pay, a labourer would often not make enough to feed his family or pay the rent on his farm: his small, two- to five-acre holding would carry an annual rent of about £1 an acre. There were few ways to rise above this hand-to-mouth existence, except perhaps by doing well at migrant work in Northern Ireland or Scotland. And there was little solace at home: housing was poor, either small thatched cottages or one-roomed, window-less huts, barely twelve feet square, made of stone and turf and mud and roofed with branches and peat. The only furnishings inside were straw bedding and a pot over a fire for cooking potatoes, with a hole in the roof to let the smoke out. Treats were rare. At Christmas (in the early years at least), Sydney distributed meat amongst the families of the workers and held parties at the coach house for the children.


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## Dean O (May 5, 2009)

This History is not directly about this house but this house was part of the Lough Rynn estate .
And it was the best i could do.


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## prendy79 (May 5, 2009)

spot on guys, that house looks great.


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## Dirus_Strictus (May 5, 2009)

Neosea said:


> Interesting looking house, like the addition of the upper floor.



I think you will find that the upper floor's brickwork was in the original plans, the chimney structure is far too complicated for the first floor to be an after thought. This architectural style can be found in other properties, which were built around the same period as the reported example.


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## VforVendetta (May 22, 2009)

I am going to check out this place soon, any more information you can give me! ??????


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## Dean O (May 26, 2009)

VforVendetta said:


> I am going to check out this place soon, any more information you can give me! ??????



let me no when you are going to come down and have a look and ill show you round and some other places if you what.


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