49 & 51 Quay Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A pair of 2½ storey houses 5 bays wide overall in terrace.

Elevations to Quay Road from right No. 49 consists of entrance door, pair of vertical double hung sliding sash 2 pane windows, over door a similar window and pair over ground windows. At roof level breaking the eaves line 2 no. gabled dormers with single vertical windows. ½ round gutter fixed to meagre eaves overhang. Plain timber barges to dormers with couple ties 2 downpipes, natural slated roof, single chimney stack.

No. 51 has plain entrance door with single vertical ground floor window. At 1st floor a single vertical window centred over one below. A single dormer similar to No. 49 directly over window. ½ round metal gutters, 2 downpipes, natural slated roof, gable chimney stack. Walls smooth rendered and painted. All ground floor windows and doors boarded up.

To the north a high boundary wall at back of footwalk, maintaining building line. In this wall a boarded up small shop window and door. Wall rendered and painted to match No.s 49 and 51. Wall has brick coping and reduces in height beyond shopfront with a sweeping downwards curve.

Historical information

Precise date of buildings uncertain but their block appears on the OS map of 1832; they were apparently two-storey buildings originally as shown in a topographical painting which depicts Hugh Boyd's manor house and adjacent former industrial and factory sites, these being houses built on or adjoining what was the former brewery site. The painting supposedly dates from c 1800 but probably dates from after 1857 as it depicts a triple-arch bridge in the background – the Bonamargy Bridge – rather than the previous bridge of five arches which was washed away in 1857. Thus the later top storey of these houses would appear to date from after 1857. The effect of the addition of the upper storey, and what were probably contemporary modifications to the façade, including plate glass in window sashes, has been to impart a mid-19th century or slightly later character and appearance to the properties rather than early 19th century.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1832, Co Antrim 9.
2. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 9.
3. OS Map 1904, Co Antrim 9.
4. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Vol 24: Parishes of County Antrim IX, 1830-2, 1835, 1838-9 (Belfast, 1994), p 93 (refers to Hugh Boyd's brewery which adjoined these houses).

Secondary Sources
1. UAHS, Glens of Antrim (Belfast, 1971), p 51 (item 22).
2. F. Hamond, Antrim Coast and Glens Industrial Heritage (Belfast, 1991), pp 45 and 74 (p 45 has an illustration of a topographical painting showing the buildings as being of two-storeys; original painting is possession of Presbyterian Historical Society).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A pair of 2½ storey houses 5 bays wide overall in terrace. The houses appear to have been originally built in the early 19th century but were added to and altered in the mid-19th century. They are not considered to possess special historic or architectural interest.