Ardmore

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey house with hipped roof, and a long return to one side.

Main entrance front faces east; symmetrical three-bay, with a later single-storey porch in the centre. Walls smooth rendered, lined and blocked, with quoins to the extremities, all renewed c 1987, over rubble with coarse brick dressings; stone cills. Roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses. Two chimneys grouped in centre, rendered, with T-shaped chimney pots. First floor three windows wide; timber sliding sash, vertically hung, 3 over 6, without horns. Ground floor windows similar but 1 over 1, one to each side of central porch which encloses main entrance. Main entrance recessed in elliptically arched opening with sidelights containing later translucent glazing, and radial decorative fanlight with looped glazing bars in margin, original. Panelled folding two-leaf door of varnished pine. Rustications of arched opening modelled in stipple plaster painted white. Porch constructed in timber on a low rendered wall, containing a door at either end and a seven-light window with segmental-headed transom lights, across the front, all surmounted by an entablature; flat roof. North door to porch original; tall two-leaf, with segmental-headed glazing above panels. South door to porch modern replacement; rectangular panelled, glazed, with two-paned fanlight. Cast iron guttering and downpipe.

South facade of main block as front, with one window each floor, both as ground floor of entrance front. Extending to left a two-storey return, dry dashed with limestone chippings, above smooth rendered base, with smooth rendered platband at first floor, all replacement finish c 1987. Four windows to first floor above door and three windows below, all windows in smooth cement reveals, timber sliding sash vertically hung 1 over 1, with horns, all replacements c 1987. Door of return as south door of porch, without fanlight. PVC downpipe. Two chimneys, rendered, similar to front. Hipped two-storey wing of harled rubble abutting return; one window in east wall, timber sliding sash vertically hung, 2 over 1, with horns; and two vent slits dressed in red brick with slate cill; red brick chimney with traces of harling in end wall of wing.

West facade of main house obscured by apparently later rectangular projection containing bathroom; rendered, with one window to first floor, timber casement with central mullion below rectangular top light; small four-paned window and ledged door with damaged lintel to ground floor. Cast iron gutter and downpipes.

North facade of main block as south.

North facade of return four windows wide, comprising lower outshot to west, probably later addition, with roof sweeping down from original eaves line. Two first floor windows sliding sash vertically hung, 3 over 6, without horns; with 6 over 2 (a replacement), and 6 over 6 to ground floor original return; followed in outshot by two first floor fixed-light six-pane, above two sliding sash, 6 over 6, with horns.

Back yard enclosed on other sides by two-storey facade of rear wing outbuilding and single-storey stone sheds and animal pen. West facade of two-storey rear wing outbuilding harled, but surrounds to openings in poor condition.

The house stands back from the main road in a rural location, set in a pleasant well kept garden, with various outbuildings adjacent to it. Detached rubble stone outbuildings to the west, a vacant Edwardian roughcast house to the south, and a two-storey rubble outbuilding to the south east, are of no special interest. Entrance gateway on main road comprises pair of decorative Victorian cast iron gates, set between angled square piers with chamfered corners and weathered capstones, all smooth rendered and painted. Curving screen walls of harled rubble, and boundary wall to south of basalt rubble.

Historical information

The main house block appears for the first time on the OS map of 1857 as does the rear wing of outbuildings and detached outbuildings to the rear and side, but the return appears to incorporate a building which appears on the OS map of 1832. Return extended to north in 1949.

References - Primary

1. OS Map 1832, Co Antrim 40.
2. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 40.
3. Information from owner in 1997.

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

This is a fine house of mid-19th century date which unfortunately has had some of its fabric replaced with a subsequent loss of quality.