9 MILL STREET

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Terraced single-bay three-storey rendered former house, built early 1800's, with timber shopfront and two-storey flat-roofed rear extension. Rectangular on plan facing southeast as part of a continuous terrace lining the north west side of Mill Street.

Pitched natural slate roof with black clay ridge tiles, cast-iron rainwater goods and shared rendered chimneystack to the north east party wall. Painted ruled-and-lined rendered walling with rusticated rendered quoins to the left. Square-headed window openings with painted concrete sills and replacement horizontally-glazed timber sliding sash windows with ogee horns.

Single-bay three-storey front elevation with replacement timber shopfront spanning the ground floor. Central fixed-pane timber display window on concrete sill flanked by square-headed door openings. All openings flanked by fluted timber pilasters supporting lead-lined plain timber fascia. Replacement timber panelled and glazed door to the right (providing access to the ground floor unit) and replacement timber panelled door to the left (providing access to the upper floors).

Southwest side is abutted by adjoining house No.11 Mill Street (HB05/02/005A).

Single-bay three-storey rear elevation obscured by flat-roofed two-storey rear extension having rough-cast cement rendered walling and paired 1/1 timber sliding sash windows.

Northeast side abutted by adjoining building No.7B Mill Street (HB05/02/003C).

Setting:
Forming part of a continuous terrace of similarly scaled buildings lining the north west side of Mill Street.

Roof Natural slate
RWG Cast-iron
Walling Painted ruled-and-lined render
Windows Replacement timber sliding sash

Historical information

No. 9 Mill Street, an early-Victorian three-storey single-bay building located on the north west side of Mill Street, was constructed prior to 1857. The majority of the two and three-storey buildings located along the north side of Mill Street were erected in the first half of the 19th century by the landowning Turnly family. Cushendall’s proprietor Francis Turnly had travelled to China in 1796 where he raised a fortune of around £75,000. In 1801 Turnly used this money to purchase the estate of Newtownglens from the Richardson family at a cost of £24,000; Turnly subsequently renamed the settlement Cushendall. Brett states that Turnly was an eccentric character who ‘effected extraordinary improvements in buildings and roads on his property.’ Cushendall consisted of little more than a number of insignificant cabins, a mill and a bridge at the time of the purchase however, due to an increase in the number of tourists travelling through the area (on the way to the Giant’s Causeway) the village was developed into a coastal resort with the erection of hotels (such as the Glens of Antrim on Shore Street) and numerous commercial properties (Dallat, p. 45; Brett, Buildings of Co. Antrim, p. 288; Cushendall Conservation Area Guide).

No. 9 Mill Street is likely to date from as early as the Townland Valuations (1834), however it is difficult to identify specific structures in that source due to the loss of the accompanying Townland Valuation Town Plan for Cushendall. The building was first recorded with certainty on the second edition Ordnance Survey map (1857) and Griffith’s Valuation (1859) which noted that No. 9 Mill Street was valued at £6 and 15 shillings and was initially leased by the McDonnell family of Kilmore House (HB05/01/012) to a Mr. Henry McAuley. In 1880 ownership of the building passed to the McAlister family (who retained ownership until at least the 1970s) whilst the occupants of the house changed with great frequency over the following decades. In 1911 the site was occupied by James McNeill, a local butcher. In that year the census building return described No. 9 Mill Street as a 2nd class dwelling that consisted of four rooms and possessed two cow houses, a piggery, fowl house and potato house in its rear yard. Hugh McSparran, a local butcher and flesher, occupied No. 9 Mill Street during the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57) which recorded the building’s ground floor shopfront for the first time and increased the value of the house to £16. McSparran continued to operate his butchers shop from the address until his death in 1949 (PRONI Wills). The occupants of the house changed frequently over the following two decades and by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956-72) the value of the building had been lowered to £10 and 10 shillings (the decrease in value was due to the closure of the ground floor shop in c. 1960).

In 1972 the UAHS Guide for the Glens of Antrim described nos 9-23 Mill Street as ‘a long terrace of three-storey rendered houses with quoins, all with similar proportions and detailing, but most rather dreary … the shops in the terrace have simple fascias.’ In addition the guide described Mill Street in the following general terms: ‘An outstandingly good street by Ulster standards; there is almost nothing to jar the eye … this street demands, and deserves, the most careful and sensitive consideration of any change of any kind’ (UAHS Guide, p. 34). The buildings along Mill Street were included in the Cushendall Conservation area in 1975, only the second conservation area in the province to have been designated at that time, ‘testimony itself to the special qualities of the village.’ In that year the village was also chosen as one of Northern Ireland’s four pilot schemes for conservation during the European Architectural Heritage Year. No. 9 Mill Street was subsequently listed in 1976. The NIEA HB Records note that the building underwent an interior reorganisation in c. 1980 which altered the ground floor into a café whilst the upper floors were converted into a pair of self-contained apartments. In 1995-97 No. 9 Mill Street underwent a major alteration which included the construction of a modern extension to the rear of the building, the replacement of all interior floors and staircases, the installation of new windows and doors throughout, the construction of a new shopfront and the reslating of the roof with Bangor Blue slates (NIEA HB Records; Cushendall Conservation Area Guide).

References

Primary Sources
1. PRONI OS/6/1/20/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1857)
2. PRONI OS/6/1/20/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1903)
3. PRONI OS/6/1/20/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1921)
4. PRONI OS/8/84/1 – Ordnance Survey Town Plan (1903)
5. PRONI VAL/1/B/148 – Townland Valuations (1834)
6. PRONI VAL/12/B/1/40B – Griffith’s Valuation (1859)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/2/7A-F – Annual Revisions (1864-1923)
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/2/12A– Annual Revisions (1923-29)
9. PRONI VAL/3/C/1/14 – First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57)
10. PRONI VAL/4/B/1/10 – Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956-72)
11. Ulster Town Directories (1880-1918)
12. Census of Ireland (1901; 1911)
13. PRONI Wills Catalogue (2 Mar 1949)
14. First Survey Record – HB05/02/004 (1971)
15. NIEA HB Record – HB05/02/004

Secondary Sources
1. Brett, C. E. B., ‘List of historic buildings, groups of buildings and areas of architectural importance in the Glens of Antrim’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1972.
2. Brett, C. E. B., ‘Buildings of Co. Antrim’ Belfast: Ulster Architectural Heritage Society, 1996.
3. Dallat, C., ‘The road to the Glens’ Belfast: The Friar’s Bush Press, 1989.
4. ‘Cushendall Village Conservation Area’ Belfast: Department of the Environment, 1975.
5. ‘Cushendall Conservation Area’ Belfast: Department of the Environment, 1993.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
R. Age
S. Authenticity
T. Historic Importance

Evaluation

Terraced single-bay three-storey rendered former house, constructed prior to 1857, possibly c1834. It is located in the centre of Cushendall village on the north west side of Mill Street between No.7b Mill Street (HB05/02/003C) to its north east side and No.11 Mill Street (HB05/02/005A) to its south west. Despite the loss of original historic detailing to both the interior and exterior, No.9 remains an integral component of this early terrace on Mill Street. It has group value with its terraced neighbours. It is of local interest in the historic village centre.