GLENBURN HOUSE AND GATE SCREEN

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Detached symmetrical four-bay single-storey with attic rendered house, built c.1887. Rectangular on plan facing south east and set on a slightly elevated site on the north west side of Ballyemon Road. Currently derelict.

Pitched natural slate roof with roll-moulded black clay ridge tiles and a rendered chimneystack rising from either gable end with lipped clay pots. UPVC rainwater goods and overhanging eaves. Flint dashed cement rendered walling with smooth rendered plinth course. Square-headed window openings with painted stone sills, 6/6 sliding timber sash windows with slender horns and exposed sash boxes.

Symmetrical four-bay single-storey front elevation (SE) with central square-headed door opening having replacement hardwood glazed doorcase (door missing).

Gabled south west side elevation with three windows to ground floor and two windows to attic level. Now largely overgrown.

Rear elevation inaccessible.

Gabled north east side elevation as per south elevation with two timber brackets to the overhanging eaves.

Setting:
Located on its own grounds on an elevated site and set back on the west side of Ballyemon Road accessed via winding driveway crossing a small river. Rear yard enclosed by rendered walls with double-leaf wrought-iron gates hung on rendered piers. Two-storey rendered building to the west with slate roof and various uPVC or timber casement windows.

Roof Natural slate
RWG UPVC
Walling Flint dash cement render
Windows Original timber sliding sash

Historical information

Glenburn House, a one-and-a-half-storey late-Victorian farmhouse located in the townland of Killoughag one kilometre to the southwest of Cushendall, was constructed in c. 1887. In that year the dwelling was first recorded in the Annual Revisions which set its rateable value at £6 and noted that the farmhouse was leased by Charles Lepper of Glenville House (HB05/03/002) to the Rev. William Christie, curate at Layde Parish Church on Mill Street. The Rev. Christie only briefly resided at Glenburn House, which was originally known as ‘Burnside,’ until c. 1892 when the farmhouse passed to James Park Cinnamond who was manager of Cushendall’s Northern Bank Branch on Shore Street (HB05/02/028). Burnside farm was noted on the third edition Ordnance Survey map (1903-04) which recorded the building along its current layout. The map depicted both the farmhouse and the single-storey outbuilding (to the north side of the dwelling) but also noted a second outbuilding to the northwest of the dwelling (this was replaced with a modern barn in the late-20th century).

James Park Cinnamond continued to reside at Burnside until c. 1898 when the property passed to Alexander McKillop, a local farmer. McKillop resided at Burnside with his wife and two sons during the 1911 Census of Ireland which described the farmhouse as a 1st class dwelling that consisted of six rooms and possessed a stable, two cow houses, a piggery, fowl house, a barn and a turf house amongst its outbuildings. Burnside had been purchased outright by the McKillop family and was occupied by Alexander McKillop’s son Daniel by the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57) which increased the total rateable value of the site to £7 and 5 shillings. Daniel McKillop continued to be recorded as occupant of the farm by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956-72) at which time the value of the site stood at £13 and 15 shillings.

In 1972 the UAHS guide for the Glens of Antrim described Glenburn House in the following terms: ‘Hidden in trees at a turn on the road below the slopes of Lurigethan, an excellent and unexpected large farmhouse of about 1820 [sic], single-storey and attic, whitewashed; five bays long; but five tall windows crammed into the gable-end almost in the Russian or Bavarian manner; Georgian glazing-bars complete throughout’ (UAHS guide, p. 31). Glenburn House was listed in 1976. The NIEA HB Records note that Glenburn House underwent an extensive renovation in c. 1999 which included the reslating of its roof, the renewing of its windows frames and the installation of new doors (NIEA HB Records).

References

Primary Sources
1. PRONI OS/6/1/15/2 – Second Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1857)
2. PRONI OS/6/1/15/3 – Third Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1903-04)
3. PRONI OS/6/1/15/4 – Fourth Edition Ordnance Survey Map (1922)
4. PRONI VAL/12/B/2/19C-F – Annual Revisions (1883-1923)
5. PRONI VAL/12/B/2/13A– Annual Revisions (1923-29)
6. PRONI VAL/3/C/1/4 – First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57)
7. PRONI VAL/4/B/1/10 – Second General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1956-72)
8. Ulster Town Directories (1880-1918)
9. Census of Ireland (1901; 1911)
10. First Survey Record – HB05/03/002 (1971)
11. NIEA HB Record – HB05/02/037

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.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

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

Evaluation

Detached symmetrical four-bay single-storey with attic rendered house, built c.1887. This residence displays a late nineteenth-century appearance with much of its original external detailing still extant, albeit in a deteriorating condition. One of the more significant houses on the ourskirts of Cushendall, it is well proportioned and detailed.