96 Ballybracken Road

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey 3-bay house, with rendered walls and slated gabled roof. Main entrance faces north.

North elevation is symmetrical with one window to each side of a central doorway.
Walls rendered with wet dash of crushed stones, with projecting smooth rendered plinth, and slightly projecting vertical smooth rendered end strips.
Roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses; ridge tiled; two chimneys, one on each gable, rendered as walls; modern pots to chimneys. PVC gutter on timber eaves board, with PVC downpipe at right-hand side returning around corner to west gable.
Windows are rectangular PVC fixed lights with top-hung vents, double glazed with pseudo-small panes, set in smooth rendered reveals with slightly raised smooth rendered surrounds; projecting concrete cill.
Main entrance is a modern rectangular PVC door, panelled and incorporating a semi-circular radial glazed panel, set in a PVC frame surmounted by a rectangular fanlight double glazed with pseudo-small panes in 5 divisions, to imitate original 6-pane fanlight.

East gable is a blank wall rendered with a scratch coat of cement, with a slightly raised vertical border to the right-hand extremity; slight overhang to flush verges.
Projecting from the gable is a setback single storeyed outbuilding, with fieldstone walls and corrugated iron roof. One small window close to house, rectangular timber sliding sash, 1 over 1 with horns, with plastered timber lintel, and recessed cill. To the left of that is another similar opening containing blocks with a small ledged timber door on panel.

Rear elevation is of similar character to the entrance front with similar roof and wall, and PVC gutter with PVC downpipe to left-hand side. Windows are similar to entrance front except the glazing bars are in imitation of 2 over 2 panes.
Three windows to each floor, with a doorway between second and third windows to right. Doorway comprises a glazed flush timber door with modern handle set in a slightly raised smooth rendered surround; concrete doorstep.

West gable is a blank wall rendered as the main elevation; PVC downpipe to left-hand side returning from the entrance elevation; PVC soil pipe.

SETTING: The house stands in a very rural area, facing the main road, but set well back from it within its own grounds which comprise farm grazing fields. It is approached by a concrete lane bordered by hedges, with the field immediately in front of the house enclosed by stone and sod walls.
Alongside and to the rear of the house are single storey rubble stone and rendered outbuildings of no special interest, roofed in corrugated iron and in slate.
A small fence-enclosed area immediately in front of the house has a gravel surface bordered by a small rockery, approached by a gateway with circular piers, rendered as the house, with smooth conical caps, containing a pair of modern slatted timber gates.

Historical information

Precise date of building not known, but it appears on the OS map of 1833.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1833, Co Antrim 44.
Secondary Sources
1. C.E.B. Brett, Buildings of County Antrim (UAHS, Belfast, 1996), p 232.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is a much altered early nineteenth century house. It retains its original external architectural form but apart from that now has little architectural character remaining.