Townland Valuation (1833) for Ballymoney Town

The Townland* Valuation of 1828-40 was primarily a valuation of land with a valuation of houses, initially, of £3 or more. From 1838 it was decided to only value houses worth £5 or more. This meant that many houses in the countryside were not recorded. However, because houses in towns were of a higher value, more houses were recorded providing us with not only lists of householders in streets but also considerable information on the condition of the houses and associated outbuildings. Also, Ballymoney town was valued in 1833 which meant that houses of 3£ or more were included. However, remember that there would have been house, particularly on the edge of the town, below the £3 threshold.

It would be impossible, on this web site, to give you the valuations for all of the streets in the town. The links below will take you to a number of pages relating to one street - Church Street. Pages 1 to 7 in this table refer to the part of Church Street that was within the townland of Townparks. I also included a further three pages that relate to the townland of Glebe which contained the church, rectory and Erasmus Smith school which encroached on the eastern end of Church Street.

• The number in the first column relates to a large scale map. Normally this would mean that you could locate a particular house within a street. Unfortunately there does not appear to be a large-scale map for Ballymoney in 1833.**
• The next column gives the name of the householder and a description of all of the buildings plus a code such as 1A  or 2B which is shorthand for the condition of the building. 
• The next three columns give the length, breadth and height of the property in that order and the final column, its valuation.
• Read this for details of the code used to describe the condition of a building.

I have made a list of the householders recorded in the 1833 valuation for some of the streets in the town, including a description of the buildings which made up their holding plus the code assigned to the property and its valuation. Two versions of the list are available in the tables below - one sorted by surname and one by street.

* The term Townland Valuation seems a strange one for a town. However, remember that this valuation was mainly a valuation of land and houses in the countryside. Also remember that the town of Ballymoney was situated in the townlands of Glebe and Townparks - see map - and the information relating to the town was presented within these two townlands. It is only with the arrival of Urban and Rural Districts at the end of the nineteenth century that, administratively, the town is given an identity of its own.

** You can use the 1814 map of the town, Miller's list of inhabitants between 1804 and1810, and the Griffith's Valuation of 1859 to work out where the houses of the people listed in 1833 were located within each street.