11 Harbour Road,

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey building of asymmetrical layout with a stepped gable to one side of a crenellated entrance tower. Main entrance faces north.

Roofs of Bangor blue slates in regular courses; walls smooth rendered, with quoins to extremities of end bays. Windows are rectangular timber sliding sash, mainly 2 over 2, with horns, in plain reveals, except for a Gothic arched window in the first floor of the entrance tower which is a timber fixed light with a top-hung lower light, set in a raised Gothic arched surround with chamfered reveals. Ground floor of tower contains a rectangular timber glazed and panelled door surmounted by a plain rectangular fanlight, set in plain reveals, with later fluted timber panels fixed to each side, and a wooden panel over the head. Large modern shop sign lettering fixed to upper part of tower front. Modern shop fronts inserted in blocks flanking tower.

Side elevations are smooth rendered, with similar sashed windows in the wall to the west; rectangular timber fixed lights with top-hung vents in the wall to the east. Rear elevation is of plain character; includes blind rectangular window openings.

SETTING: The building stands within the built-up area of the village, sideways on to the main street and set back from it slightly behind a stretch of rendered boundary wall.
It is situated at the south end of the harbour, overlooking it, with its formerly enclosed front plot now opened up and forming an integral part of the public space within the harbour area. Immediately behind it is the embankment of the former railway line, now a pedestrian way, approached by a new flight of steps to the front of this building.

Historical information

Built as the offices of the limestone works, as part of the scheme of improvements made by the Marchioness of Londonderry in the early to mid-1850s, being located beside the railway bridge over which limestone and other mineral ores were transported from the inland quarries to the harbour; precise date of building not known but it appears on the OS map of 1857 and so was probably built c 1855, shortly after the railway bridge and the harbour itself, which were both completed in 1854; long known as 'Harbour House'; renovated by Paddy Byrne, Architects, as part of the Carnlough Harbour refurbishment scheme of 1993.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 25.

Secondary Sources
1. M. McSparran, C. Dallat and J. Irvine, Oh Maybe it was Yesterday (Glens of Antrim Historical Society, 1980), p 18.
2. DOE (NI) , Carnlough Conservation Area (1981).
3. F. Hamond, Antrim Coast and Glens: Industrial Heritage (HMSO, Belfast, 1991), p 87 (item no. 59).
4. IHR 6617.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is a mid-19th century building which has lost a number of original features due to refurbishment and extension, and can no longer be considered to present an original appearance to the exterior or interior.