Vernacular houses of this type were built to local convention rather than any formal plan, shaped by the materials at hand, the slope of the land, and the habits of whoever was doing the building. The four-bay frontage, the hipped roof (that is, a roof where all four sides slope downward, rather than ending in a gable), and the thatched covering are all characteristic of rural Irish domestic building from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The off-centre placement of both door and chimney is not unusual in this tradition; symmetry was a concern of polite architecture, not of the farmer or labourer putting up a home. The projecting jambs around the door, stone surrounds that stand proud of the wall face, were a modest gesture toward finish and permanence. At some point after the house was formally recorded and described, it was abandoned.