Townland Valuation (1833) for Ballymoney Rural Area

The Townland Valuation of 1828-40 was primarily a valuation of land but with a valuation of certain houses. Initially houses and outbuildings with an annual value of £3 or more were recorded but from 1838 this was increased to £5. Such valuations meant that many houses in the countryside were not recorded.

Fortunately much of the Ballymoney area was valued during the year 1833 which means that quite a number of houses were recorded in each townland. The valuation lists the dwelling house and outbuildings and, using a code, tells you whether they were thatched or slated, what the walls were made of, and the general condition of each building. It is also gives you measurements for each buildings - length, breadth and height. Click here for a copy of the code used by the valuers. When you look at the pages of the valuation you will notice that the valuers revised their original valuations from time to time and, in particular, stroked out the original number assigned to each house. I'm pretty sure that, in most cases, these new numbers correspond to the numbers that were eventually used in the 1859 Griffith's Valuation.

Clearly, it would not be possible for me to cover the entire parish of Ballymoney on this web site. I have chosen three areas within the Ballymoney rural area centred on Seacon/Tullaghgore, Ballycormick/Ballywattick and Killyramer/Kilraghts - see map. In the table below you will find links to copies of the actual manuscript pages from the Townland Valuation book of 1833 for each of the townlands in these areas. In some cases there are two pages for a townland, and in one case, three. The order of townlands in each area is the same as that for 1859 Griffith's Valuation and 1901 Census Returns i.e. a geographical order.

There are maps accompanying this valuation, known as the VAL/1A maps in PRONI. However these maps are not like the 1859 Griffith's maps. Plots of land are identified on these maps by number, but these do not refer to the individual holdings of farmers. Instead, they refer to areas of land within the townland that were described, for example, as arable and pasture or bogland and furze, etc., worth so much an acre.

The numbers of the houses which are actually valued do appear on these maps and they could be used to identify a particular house. However, in my experience, it is relatively easy to link the 1833 houses to the houses in the 1859 Valuation.

Quite often valuers wrote comments on the pages - click here to see a few examples.