1 Parade Ground

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey, two-bay house forming part of a terrace of seven houses. Main entrance located in a projecting porch on the east elevation.

East elevation comprises a two-storey main block which contains two windows, one to each floor, to the left of a projecting single storey gabled porch. Main block roof is of synthetic slates in regular courses. One chimney to left-hand gable: of modern concrete brickwork with projecting brick block cornice; two modern pots. Wall smooth rendered with projecting eaves course on frieze, all painted white, and raised quoins to left-hand extremity, painted black; base of main wall also painted black to resemble plinth. Looks like cast iron gutter. Windows are rectangular timber 4-pane fixed lights with 2-pane top-hung vents, set in plain reveals, painted white, with projecting stone or concrete cills, painted black.

Porch has roof of synthetic slates in regular courses; overhanging eaves with feet of rafters exposed; decorative timber barge boards to gable ornamented with scrolling fretwork; cast iron gutter and downpipe. Walls rendered as previous including raised quoins to outer corners, painted black. Front wall of porch contains a window, one of a pair with the adjoining house: rectangular timber 2-pane fixed light with single-pane top-hung vent. Side wall of porch, facing south, contains main entrance: new rectangular timber panelled and glazed door, set in plain reveals; composition doorstep.

South elevation is a blank gable, rendered with a wet dash of crushed stones, painted white, with raised smooth rendered quoins to extremities, painted black. Overhanging eaves with timber boarded soffit; timber barge boards ornamented with scrolling fretwork similar to front porch. Vertical black painted metal trunking to cables up right-hand side of gable.
Extending to the left is a basalt rubble boundary wall to the rear yard.

Rear elevation: two-storey; roof as previous to front elevation; wall rendered as previous; cast iron gutter with cast iron downpipe. Windows are modern rectangular timber fixed lights with top-hung vents, with projecting stone or concrete cills. Windows to left-hand side of door are coupled with windows to adjoining house, contained within recessed common opening with broad timber sash box as a central common mullion. Doorway contains a rectangular timber glazed and panelled stained hardwood door. Projecting at the right-hand side at ground floor is a single storey rear return of outbuildings: lean-to roof of corrugated iron; wall smooth rendered, painted white, with black painted plinth; PVC gutter and downpipe.

SETTING: The building stands within the built-up area of the town, located in a terrace of seven houses which faces the river but is set well back from it with an extensive hardstanding in front surfaced partly in tarmac; front boundary to hardstanding formed by a low rendered retaining wall to the riverbank, with a large metal pipe across it, on concrete supports, viewed through a screen of mature trees; front open area bounded to north by a basalt retaining wall surmounted by original iron railings, retaining the end of the elevated main street. Front open area bounded to south by a tall railway viaduct, now defunct, built of snecked basalt rubble.
Small concrete area immediately outside front entrance. A tarmac communal drive runs past the end gable between it and the railway viaduct. At the rear is an open yard or compound common to all houses in the terrace: mainly of hard surfacing. Concrete area immediately to rear of this house. Slated single storey basalt rubble garages or sheds form the west boundary to the rear area.

Historical information

Built as part of a terrace of houses, but the precise date of the terrace is not known; its present frontage with projecting porches is shown on the OS map of 1903, plain rectangular blocks having been shown on the site on the OS maps of 1829 and 1858; the date for what appears on site now may be taken as mid-to late 19th century. The terrace of houses occupies the site of the barracks of the Antrim Regiment of Militia, built by Lord O'Neill (Colonel of the Antrim Regiment) in 1816 at a cost of £2000, solely for the staff of that regiment on its being disembodied. It was described in the 1830s as follows: "The barracks consist of 3 parallel ranges of buildings. The front range facing the river consists of 4 contiguous houses 2-storeys high, 130 feet long and 20 feet deep. The second range consists of 1-storey houses and the third is occupied with offices for the others … These barracks afford comfortable quarters to the militia staff and the front range is in good repair, but they bear no resemblance to a regular barrack either in their construction or fitting up, and do not in any respect differ from ordinary dwelling houses." It would appear that the present terrace is a later remodelling of the 1816 block. Where there were 4 houses originally in the block facing the river, there are now 7 which also have projecting porches. The same source in the 1830s also referred to the parade ground in front of the houses as follows: "In front of the barracks a very handsome parade ground 36 yards broad extends for 184 yards along the edge of the river. It is quite level and is kept well gravelled."
Another source, in the 1840s, described the parade as being "now the town mall or public promenade." The parade was later shortened in length by the building of the railway viaduct in the mid-1850s.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1829, Co Antrim 43.
2. OS Map 1858, Co Antrim 43.
3. OS Map 1903, Co Antrim 43.
4. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Vol 19: Parishes of County Antrim VI, 1830, 1833, 1835-8 (Belfast, 1993), pp 34, 43.
5. S. Lewis, A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, Vol II, (London, 1837), p 484.
6. Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland, 1844-45, Vol III, 1846, p 111.

Secondary Sources
1. UAHS, Antrim and Ballymena (Belfast, 1969), p 24 (item no 11).

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
I. Quality and survival of Interior
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This house is part of a terrace that is probably a remodeling of a former militia barracks. The group have architectural as well as historic character and have a good setting beside the river Main and a listed bridge and viaduct.

General comments

This record was previously numbered HB20/04/022A.