Burnside House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey, three-bay stuccoed house with three dormers to the entrance front, and a long rear return. Main entrance faces west.

West elevation symmetrical with one window to each side of a central doorway. Roof of natural slates in regular courses between gable upstands; tiled ridge. Three dormer windows with slated roofs, gables and cheeks; each dormer contains a rectangular timber sliding sash window, 3 over 3, with horns. Two chimneys, one on each gable, smooth cement rendered and painted, with channel mouldings; moulded cornices; three pots to each stack.

Walls of smooth cement render with rusticated quoins to extremities; projecting plinth; projecting eaves course with shaped brackets to support guttering. Moulded cast iron gutter returning to both end gables.

Windows are rectangular timber sliding sash, 6 over 6, with horns, with exposed sash boxes, set in smooth rendered reveals, with projecting concrete cills; rusticated surrounds to ground floor windows, with shaped head and keystones; smooth rendered raised surrounds to first floor windows, lugged and heeled, with raised keystones.

Entrance recessed in a moulded elliptical arch with keystone, with reeded and chamfered pilasters. Door is 10-panelled, raised and fielded, set in a timber frame of fluted pilasters with a raised Greek key pattern to the frieze, with cornice over, flanked by 4-pane sidelights and surmounted by a looped radial fanlight; small modern brass doorknob. Brick paved doorstep in herringbone pattern with two sandstone steps.

Spaces between the doorway and flanking windows on ground floor and between windows and quoins are filled with rectangular panels with quadrant corners, outlined by a recessed moulded border.

North gable is rendered as entrance front; with the gable copings continuous across the base of the chimney stack as a stringcourse; rusticated quoins to right-hand extremity. Metal downpipe over face of quoins, from short return of gutter to entrance front. One window in each floor, rectangular timber, sashed as to entrance front, set in raised rendered block surrounds with keystone motif; smaller attic window in apex of gable, semi-circular headed timber, sashed 6 over 6 with radial lights to head; keystone block surround.

To the left of the gable extends a long 2-storey rear return in two levels, with a canted 2-storey bay projecting immediately to the left of the gable. Roofs slated as main block, with a terracotta ball finial to the bay. One chimney on the gable of the first stage of the rear return, plain rendered, with moulded cornice and two pots. Walls smooth cement rendered with projecting plinth, and stepped projecting eaves courses. Moulded guttering with circular metal downpipes and similar soil pipe. Windows are all rectangular timber, in plain reveals, sashed as previous, except for a tall semi-circular headed stair window in the lower roofed return, which comprises two 9-pane fixed lights divided by a broad rail with radial lights to the head.

End gable of rear return is plain rendered with projecting coping, and projecting plinth. Short returns of moulded gutters from each side elevation supported on end returns of eaves courses, with circular metal downpipes. One window, at first floor level, semi-circular headed timber sashed 6 over 6, with horns, set in plain reveals.

South elevation comprises the south gable of the main front block, with the first block of the rear return set back to the right, and the lower end block of the rear return set back further to the right.

South gable of main front block is similar to north gable except rusticated quoins to both extremities, and only one window, to attic, with a doorway to the ground floor; door is rectangular timber glazed and panelled, with 9 panes, set in raised smooth rendered keystone surround, lugged and heeled.

Roof, rainwater goods and walling and windows of rear return are as previous to north elevation, with addition of a triangular gabled dormer in the first block of the return: slated roof and gable, with two-light angle-headed 4-pane side-hung timber casements.

The lower end block of the rear return has an elliptically arched doorway, with continuous raised smooth cement surround, containing a rectangular timber 9-panel door, raised and fielded, flanked by 3-pane sidelights and surmounted by a looped radial fanlight, in a moulded timber frame; tiled plinth; brick paved doorstep, with a concrete flagged patio area across front.

East gable of taller front block of rear return has a semi-circular window in attic at apex, glazed as to end gable of return; short return of moulded gutter from side elevation to left, with circular metal downpipe stopping short of ground level to discharge into a wooden barrel.

Rear elevation of main front block of house to left of return has rusticated quoins to left-hand extremity, covered by a metal downpipe from a moulded gutter on a projecting eaves course.

SETTING: The house stands in a very rural area, facing the road but set back from it within its own extensive grounds. Front boundary formed by a rendered wall surmounted by horizontal timber fencing; main entrance gateway comprises two large square painted concrete block piers, without gates; tarmac driveway leads to tarmac area at front of house with extensive grassed areas to front and north side. Side entrance to south from a lane to rear yard which is surrounded by rubble stone, red brick, and rendered outbuildings of little architectural interest.

Historical information

Precise date of building not known but it appears on the OS map of 1832. The dormer windows, the secondary staircase in the rear return, and the rear entrance were all added in 1988.

Primary Sources

1. OS Map 1832, Co Antrim 50

Secondary Sources

1. UAHS, West Antrim (Belfast, 1970), pp 14, 23 plate d.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H-. Alterations detracting from building

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This is a house of late Georgian foundation with essentially Georgian classical proportions and appearance to the main block, but it has now undergone a number of alterations which detract from its character.