57 Main St, Broughshane, Ballymena BT42 4JP
[Photo: The Thatch, Broughshane.]
One look at The Thatch in Broughshane, and you’ll know why it’s a Grade A listed building. From its superb thatched roof down to its studded doors and old stone walls, it fairly oozes history. The building was originally a planter’s house, and today the pitch of the roof and the rafters, tied with hand-made ropes, are the same as they were at the time of the Plantation of Ulster. The split oak logs in the roof are the originals, as good as the day they were put in, about 350 years ago.
The Royal Crest outside is reputed to have been bestowed after a royal personage stayed here overnight on his way to Londonderry. Some years ago, during alterations, some of the old roughcast on the outside was chipped away to reveal an arrow denoting the King’s Highway, dating back to the seventeen hundreds.
Broughshane’s most famous son is of course, Sir George White, the most decorated soldier in the British army and the hero of Ladysmith. It’s with his son, Captain Jack, though, that the Thatch Inn has connections, because here Jack worked at his novel ‘THE MISFIT’, often jotting down notes and ideas on bar paper. Captain Jack was a man with republican ideas in a staunchly Unionist area, and the title of his book underlines his position in the village. He was a friend of Michael Collins and is mentioned in Collins’ Diary. Jack was involved actively both in the Spanish Civil War and in the Glasgow Shipyard Strike. It’s odd to consider that this rebellious thinker and individualist was the son of such a distinguished, conservative father, the man who won the V.C. for his courage in the Khyber Pass. There’s no doubt Sir George and his wayward son will be well represented here.
Meanwhile back at the Inn….the public bar you are standing in used to be the maid’s room, back in the days of the Plantation House. Ornamental duelling pistols and rifles suggest something of its history, but even more telling are the two huge pillars, now part of the Lounge walls, which used to lead into the back yard through an archway.
The massive open fireplace on the other wall has been built in the same half-round manner to match what can still be seen of the original pillars. The Lounge itself used to be the stables and cart house, and you can’t but be impressed by the high original vaulted ceiling, like a stage-set for ‘The Crucible’.
Old oats and the remains of a saddlery business were found here during the work of conversion, and a half-penny comic, surely one of the earliest ever printed, one of the Comicuts, with jokes about the Turkish Captain giving an indication of its age.
The local Masonic lodge used to meet upstairs, just after its formation.
You can see from the above why “The Thatch” occupies a very special place in the history of Broughshane, and why today the local people still hold it in very high esteem.