87 Garron Road,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A symmetrical-fronted three-bay single-storey house in Tudor Revival style, of masonry construction, built as one of a terrace of four identical cottages. Main entrance faces west.

Entrance elevation: three-bay, containing one window to each side of a central projecting porch. Roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses with dark toned ridge tiles. One chimney to each extremity, of basalt rubble with a plain block cornice; one original octagonal stoneware pot and one modern pot to the right-hand chimney, common with the adjoining house; two modern pots to the left-hand chimney, common with the adjoining house.
Walls are of basalt rubble with a projecting eaves course; cast iron gutters and downpipes.
Windows are rectangular timber two-light casements, double glazed, with wooden glazing bars fixed on to outside face to give the appearance of margin lights, set in roughly rendered reveals with a flat arch to the head and a projecting basalt cill.

Porch is of similar walling except for addition of a projecting plinth; roof slated as previous; shaped kneelers to gable which contains a Gothic arched doorway; rectangular ledged timber door, surmounted by a Gothic arched fanlight containing intersecting glazing bars, framed in a rectangular Tudor style drip moulding; spandrel painted black with jointing picked out in white.

Rear elevation: roof slated as previous, with two gabled dormers containing rectangular PVC windows; dormer walls rendered with dry dash of white chippings. Original rear wall obscured by a later lean-to extension: roof slated as previous, with one modern rooflight; walling is rendered with dry dash of white chippings; timber eaves board; PVC gutter and downpipe. Windows and door are rectangular PVC. Raised cement surfaced terrace outside back door.

SETTING: The building stands within a terrace of four houses, located in a very rural area, on the seaward side of the main coast road. It faces the main road but is set back slightly from it with a small front garden which is surfaced with gravel; smooth cement rendered faces to boundary walls to each side of front plot. Immediately to the rear of the house is a corrugated iron shed, with a rough grassy plot beyond that, leading to the shoreline.

Historical information

Built in 1849-50 by Lady Londonderry as a Coastguard Cottage to the designs of Charles Campbell, according to extracts from letters to the Marchioness of Londonderry .

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 20.
2. Copy of extracts from letters to the Marchioness of Londonderry, in the possession of James Hannigan in 1997.
Secondary Sources
1. UAHS, Glens of Antrim (Belfast, 1971), p 25.
2. P. Magill, Garron Tower (Belfast, 1990), pp 30 and 48.
3. F. Hamond, Antrim Coast and Glens: Industrial Heritage (HMSO, Belfast, 1991), p 86 (item no. 49).
4. IHR 7695.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This is a mid-19th century terrace house in clearly proportioned but plain Tudor Revival style which retains most of its original appearance to the entrance front. Despite some degradation of its setting, it still forms part of an interesting group.