4 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 right of a projecting single storey gabled porch. Main block roof is of Bangor blue slates in regular courses. One chimney to right-hand extremity, common with the adjoining property: smooth rendered, with plain projecting brick cornice, and three modern pots.
Wall smooth rendered, with projecting eaves course on frieze; all white painted, with black painted reveals to openings. Metal gutter with cast iron downpipe. Windows are rectangular timber white painted sliding sash, 2 over 4, with horns, set in exposed sash boxes which are painted white; projecting stone cills, painted black.

Porch has roof slated as previous, but with 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 but with raised quoins to outer corners of porch, quoins painted black. Front wall of porch contains a window, one of a pair with the adjoining house: rectangular timber sliding sash, 1 over 2 with horns, in partly recessed frame, painted as previous; projecting stone cill. Side wall of porch, facing north, contains main entrance: rectangular timber panelled door, set in plain reveals; concrete step.

Rear elevation: two-storey with a two-storey gabled rear return. Roof of main block slated as previous to entrance front. Wall of main block smooth rendered with plain projecting eaves course or frieze.
Rear return has walls smooth rendered, white painted, with raised quoins to outer corners of a single storey rear projection; quoins painted black. Roofs slated as previous. Overhanging eaves to return and rear projection, with exposed rafter ends; plain timber barge boards. Cast iron gutters and downpipes. Two doorways and two windows in side wall of return facing south: rectangular timber sheeted doors; windows timber sashed 2 over 4, and 1 over 2, both with horns, set in exposed sash boxes, painted white, in plain reveals painted black; projecting concrete cills, painted black. Door to left is rear door of ground floor flat. Door to right is front door for first floor flat.
Gable of return is two-storey: windows are rectangular timber sashed 2 over 4, with horns, with exposed sash boxes, painted white, set in plain reveals painted black; projecting concrete cills painted black. Gable of rear projection contains a rectangular timber sheeted door leading into outhouse bin store.

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.
At the rear of the house is an open yard or compound common to the other houses in the terrace: mainly of hard surfacing. Slated single storey basalt rubble garages or sheds form the west boundary to rear area. Concrete path immediately skirts the rear perimeter of this house.

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.
After lying vacant for more than five years, this house was derelict by 1992, when it was then repaired, extended at the rear, and converted into two flats.

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

A. Style
B. Proportion
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 HB20/04/022D.