4 Glen Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

The house faces south-east and is sited gable end to the secondary road that proceeds west of north from the Lisburn Road which travels between Moira and Lisburn. The distance from the Lisburn Road is a little over one third of a mile and a level crossing is passed shortly after leaving that road.

It is a one and a half storey roughcast house with plain dressings to the window openings and to the projecting porch. The wall plinths and the roof corbel courses are plain, and extremities, front and back, are finished with alternating quoins.
The roof is thatched between cement skews. Each gable rises to a corbelled chimney stack, and there is a further stack left of centre serving the main hearth. These features are not provided with pots.
The flat-roofed porch is flanked to the left (south-west) by one and to the right (north-east) by three vertically-sliding windows with sashes divided into two horizontally. The entrance door is of eight panels, 4x2, and the door of the wash house at the left (south-west) end of the front elevation is of the half door sheeted variety with a glazed panel in the upper part. Three small vertically sliding plain sashed windows light the upper storey of the front elevation. All of the windows are provided with moulded sash stops, frames are exposed and sills are of traditional depths. There is a six-pane casement, 3/2, in the right hand gable. At the left the buildings extend in red brick construction and the gable of the main house above is plain.
At the rear there are three plain sashed windows at low level, and a smaller plain sashed window above. There are also two modern insertions.

The sequence from the left (north-east) is as follows:-
One sashed window, a modern casement window, a casement window of increased width and two sashed windows.
The upper light occurs intermediate between the last two sashed windows. All openings have plain dressings and the sashed windows have curved or moulded stops. The exposure of the frames is not as pronounced as at the front and the larger modern window has a narrow sill.

Historical information

Although a building is shown on this general site on the OS map of 1832 / 33, it is smaller than that we see today. The building is shown in its present form on the revised OS map of 1857 and recorded in the second valuation of c.1860, when it was divided into two properties, the larger dwelling to the northwest side occupied by a John McConn, with that to the south sublet by McConn to a John McAreavy [?or McAneany]. McConn was leasing the whole building from the Hertford Estate, with the larger dwelling rated at £1-15-0, and the smaller one at 15/-. The relatively low rateable valuable suggests that the structure may have been raised to its present two-storey form some time after the latter date.

References- Primary sources
1 PRONI VAL/1A/1/67 OS map, County Antrim sheet 67, with valuation
references (1832 / 33-c.38)
2 PRONI VAL/2A/1/67A OS map, County Antrim sheet 67, with valuation references (1857-c.60)
3 PRONI VAL/2B/1/62B Second valuation, Magheramesk (c.1860)

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
F. Structural System
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest
Z. Rarity

Evaluation

This house faces south east and sits gable end to the secondary road that runs west of north from the Lisburn Road between Moira and Lisburn. It is about one third of a mile from the Lisburn Road. It is one and a half storeyand is of of significant proportions. The layout and detailing are essentially unchanged.The condition is good. (The lack of sanitary facilities could be attended to easily by incorporating the existing wash house that is within the main walls of the building.)The stair has been repositioned but this has had negligible effect on the importance of the interior and the addition of modern fireplaces is a development encountered often in these buildings.The original part of the building is of at least early 19th. C origin but could be much earlier.