Browndod

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey three-bay painted stone house with a two-storey return to the rear and a long wing of rubble stone outbuildings to one side.

Main entrance faces north. Entrance front symmetrical, five windows wide with central doorway; hipped roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses with black ridge tiles, oversailing eaves with flat timber soffit; PVC replacement guttering, does not spoil overall appearance; cast iron downpipes. Two chimneys centrally placed on cross walls; glazed yellow brick with moulded cornices. Walls basalt rubble in regular courses, painted black; red sandstone projecting platbands across front at cill level to ground and first floor painted cream; brick dressings to all openings painted cream, not original finish but attractive in its own way. Front doorway recessed in rectangular cement rendered surround; door plain panelled, replacement; decoratively glazed sidelights and fanlight; steps of concrete. Windows vertically hung sashes without horns, 3 over 6 to first floor, 6 over 6 to ground floor, two to each side of doorway; five across first floor, the one above doorway recessed in a rectangular surround. Extending to left of house a single-storey hipped roofed outbuilding with new roughcast walls and modern profiled steel door on overhead runner.

On east elevation of house two windows, both original, one to each floor, beyond wall of abutting outbuilding. Two storey return with half-hipped slated roof extending to left, with cement rendered chimney, irregularly placed windows comprising both original and replacement types, with modern garage door of overhead type. Mid-20th century flat-roofed porch over side entrance which spoils overall appearance. South wall of return limewashed; blocked up opening to first floor. West elevation of return, basalt walls as before; one vertically hung sash window with horns, 4 over 4.

South wall of main house has later rendered single-storey canted bay with hipped roof covered in what appears to be tarred lead; three windows in bay, vertically hung sashes with horns, 6 over 1, with coloured glass to top lights. Single window above bay, as on front. In angle between house and return, a blank gabled late two-storey addition with smooth cement rendered walls, spoiling coherence of stone work: upper windows on its west face as on front of house, but one with horns; one ground floor window, coupled timber sashes with horns, each one over one, about a central mullion.

West wall of main house blank; short returns of front platbands.

The house stands in a rural location, amidst farmland, with a mature garden to the front, and a number of outbuildings in rubble basalt with red brick dressings to the side and rear, none of any architectural interest.

Historical information

The house appears for the first time on the OS map of 1857, although some outbuildings appeared on the 1832 map.

References - Primary

1. OS Map 1832, Co Antrim 40.
2. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 40.

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

An early Victorian house which retains most of its 19th century features intact