Druid’s Cottage

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey house with rendered walls and gabled roofs.

Main entrance faces west. Entrance front 1½ storeys, symmetrical, three-bay. Central doorway with two windows to each side and one above in gablet over porch. Roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses. Two chimneys, one at each gable, smooth rendered, with stepped cornice; four pots to each, tall buff earthenware, original 19th century. Cast iron gutters with returns to end gables. Eaves coved above platband, and plain timber barge board to central gablet. Walls rendered, lined and blocked, with rusticated quoins to extremities. Doorway set in coved recess; glazed rectangular sidelights with one horizontal glazing bar to each; elliptical fanlight with spandrel panes. Door original, raised and fielded panels with round heads; brass lion head knocker, new. Ground floor windows timber sliding sash, vertically hung, 1 over 1, with horns, recent replacements to previous pattern but not the original small-paned pattern; painted stone cills; continuous drip moulding stepping over windows to abut moulding around porch. Small window in gablet over porch sashed similar to ground floor; platband as cill; no drip moulding.

North gable: wall as front; overhanging eaves with timber sheeted soffits on shaped purlin ends; cast iron downpipe; two windows as on front except one horizontal division each sash.

East facade of front block harled with dry dash of pebbles and chippings; large window to ground floor, sashed as front except one vertical glazing bar each pane; new cement render repair to head; curved wall to two-storey rear porch, Edwardian addition, with translucent glazed rectangular door flanked by leaded sidelights; concrete cills; three-light window to first floor of porch, timber casement with horizontal division, flanked by leaded sidelights as below; roughcast finish, with pebbles; cast iron rainwater goods.

North wall of two-storey rear return has two first floor windows, sashed as previous, and two to ground floor, similar except one with horizontal glazing bar; door to basement new in pseudo Tudor style; wall dry dashed as previous. Lean-to single storey outset projecting form return: slated roof; PVC gutter; timber casement window, replacement; walls roughcast, of thick texture.

East gable of rear return: wall dry dashed as previous; two small windows, sashed as previous, one to each floor, and a larger one, similar, to attic, below half-hip of roof; PVC downpipe.

South gable of front block similar to north including two windows as before, plus rectangular door, modern, with plate glass above panel and reeded glass to rectangular fanlight.

South facade of rear return to right of front block, three large windows to each floor, all sashed 1 over 1 as previous except right ground floor which has vertical glazing bars; PVC guttering; cast iron waste pipes; end bay of return has two windows at staggered floor levels, both sashed 1 over 1 as previous; lower one new.

SETTING: The house stands in a rural location, facing the road and set back from it, with a prehistoric dolmen standing immediately outside the front door. Car park area to north at front, bounded by a low wall; garden to the south of the house.

Historical information

The precise date of erection of the house is not recorded but it may be taken to have been built between 1857 and 1883. A previous house on the site appears on the OS maps of 1832 and 1857, but it was immediately to the north-west of the dolmen. The front block of the present house, which is to the north-east of the dolmen, is first shown on the OS map of 1902-3 along with a wing to the north-west which was the earlier house. The present rear return is first shown on the OS map revision of 1921 by which time the previous north wing had been removed. Renovated in the early 1900s by a Captain Arthurs, according to the present owner.

The dolmen immediately outside the front door is a scheduled monument,SMR no. ANT41:7.

References - Primary

1. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Vol 10: Parishes of County Antrim III (Belfast, 1991), p 100.
2. OS Map 1832, Co Antrim 41.
3. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 41..
4. OS Map 1902-3, Co Antrim 41.
5. OS Map 1921, Co Antrim 41.
6. W. Gray, Cromlechs in counties of Down and Antrim, Journal of Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, Vol XVI (1883-4) [Article illustrates an engraving which shows the present cottage with timber sliding sash windows, vertically hung, 6 over 6].

Secondary

C.E.B. Brett, Buildings of County Antrim (Belfast, 1996), p 5.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H+. Alterations enhancing the building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

An example of a mid-Victorian house of some intrinsic architectural interest which retains most of its original appearance but is mainly distinguished by its unexpectedly close juxtaposition with a pre-historic dolmen for whose rugged appearance it provides a genteel backdrop.