Antrim Arcade

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A 3-storey group of former terrace houses with shops on the ground floor, now combined into one shopping centre, brick built with gabled dormers. The group has been formed from houses of two different types and two different heights. Main entrance faces south.

South elevation: lower block, to right, has roofs of Bangor blue slates in regular courses, with dark toned ridges; dormer roofs similar, with white painted timber barges. Moulded cast iron gutters flank each dormer, with cast iron downpipes discharging into a moulded gutter over ground floor. Walling is yellow brick with moulded stringcourses; grey stone plain stringcourses and shoulders to window openings. Windows to upper storeys are coupled segmental arched timber sliding sash, vertically hung, 1 over 1, with horns, set in stop-chamfered reveals. Higher block, to left, has roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses, with red terracotta ridges; dormer roofs similar, with moulded terracotta finials and open barge boards in white painted timber. Moulded cast iron gutters between dormers, with cast iron downpipes. Chimney of red brick. Walling is of red brick with yellow brick block dressings to windows in upper storeys. Windows to upper storeys are sashed as previous to lower block, also set in stop-chamfered reveals.
Ground floor contains a later modern 3-bay shop front with a rectangular alleyway to the left leading to the rear of the original house and a portion of the fourth: comprised of a central entrance to an arcade of shops flanked each side by a single shop. Fronts are constructed in timber, painted. Alleyway marked by a pair of narrow pillars in red brickwork.

Rear elevation: roof slated as previous; walling smooth cement rendered; one window, rectangular timber; projecting from the rear is a long modern rear return, 2-storey, of rendered walls, partly panted, with modern rectangular top-hung windows; rear wall of rear return is of exposed concrete blockwork.

SETTING: the buildings stand in a larger terrace, facing the main street of the town and opening directly onto the pavement. Alleyway from front is paved in concrete blocks

Historical information

Precise date of buildings not recorded but stylistically they may be dated to the late Victorian era.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 50 (indicates building on the site but precise date indeterminate).

Secondary Sources
1. UAHS, Antrim and Ballymena (Belfast, 1969), p 9.
2. J. Hanna, Old Antrim (Catrine, Ayrshire, 2002), p 6.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is a group of buildings that have attractive upper floors in polychromatic brickwork but are otherwise of little architectural or historic interest.