Inver Lodge

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey gabled house with rendered walls and canted bays.

Main entrance faces west. Three bay symmetrical entrance front, with a single storey hipped roof canted bay each side of a projecting gabled two-storey entrance bay. Entrance recessed in panelled and pilastered surround with cornice and bracket in plaster. Front door double leaf, panelled and glazed with Gothic pattern glazing bars and fanlight, all original. Above door in porch gable a rectangular window, timber vertically hung sliding sash without horns, one over one, with margin lights, set in pilastered subframe. Ground floor windows in side walls of porch similar, with blind recesses above. Shaped barge board to porch with turned wooden finial. Walls rendered, blocked and painted, with full height panelled pilaster to each extremity. Roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses; overhanging eaves with flat soffit. Four chimneys, one to each gable and two central, rendered and painted, with mixture of original cream earthenware pots with crowns, and later plain red terracotta pots. One small flush rooflight, possibly original. Cast iron guttering and downpipes. Canted bays hipped roofed with lead covered ridges; unusual detailing where flanking piers intersect coved frieze. Four light window angled round each bay with vertically hung timber sashes without horns, two over two with margins, set between panelled mullions of pilaster type; scalloped wooden hood, minus sunblinds, over centre lights.

To left hand side projecting from north gable, a single storey hipped open porch, later addition, probably inter-war; walls and roof as main house; semi-circular arched openings with projecting platband at springing level, comprising open archways to front and rear, and semi-circular headed window in arched recess to end wall; window metal with small panes. Porch encloses side door to house in main north gable: timber panelled and glazed, probably inter-war insertion.

North gable of house has one upper window, small paned metal casement, not original, probably inter-war. Across lower area of main north gable a lean-to hipped return to side porch, probably also inter-war, with one small metal casement, and recent large PVC fixed light, double glazed, in small paned style. Below in basement created by steep slope to site two doors, ledged.

East facade two storeys plus basement, much glazed with variety of windows comprising original sashes, inter-war casements, and recent PVC replacements.

South gable has inter-war metal casements as previous. In front of it a terrace formed by flat roof of outbuildings at basement level below.

The house is located in a suburban area elevated above the town of Larne with views to the lough, and stands in a mature and leafy garden although hard landscaping immediately surrounding the house comprising tarmac terraces and concrete paved steps with modern iron railings is not in keeping with its early 19th century character. Outbuildings of no quality or interest. Boundary walling of poor quality, and main entrance gateway on Mill Road modern, the original gateway on Whitla’s Brae having been sold off with part of the garden for new houses.

Historical information

This house appears for the first time on the OS map of 1857 but is a rebuilding or a remodelling of an earlier house which appears on the OS map of 1832.

References - Primary

1. OS Map 1832, Co Antrim 40.
2. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 40.
3. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland: Parishes of County Antrim X, Vol 26 (Belfast, 1994), p 53.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

An example of an early 19th century house with an attractive entrance elevation which retains its original features on that side.