Ardnaveigh Cottage

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single storey cottage with roughcast walls and slated roof with ornamental cusped timber bargeboards to front and rear gables, with later flat roofed extensions added to the south and east. Main entrance faces west.

The original cottage has a small canted bay on the entrance front gable, with stone roof and lozenge-paned glazing; two 3-light side windows in square headed openings with similar glazing in the north elevation are surmounted by label mouldings; and a tall square rendered chimney is on the centre of the ridge.

Extensions are in white painted brickwork and white painted roughcast, with timber fascias; main entrance is a modern glazed and panelled door with leaded glazing to sidelights and fanlight.

SETTING: The building stands facing the main road, set back from it within its own grounds which contain grassed lawns, with trees to the rear. Front boundary formed by a rubble stone wall with an open gateway to the drive.

Historical information

Built as a gate lodge to Birch Hill House, later called Ardnaveigh. Precise date of building of lodge not known, but it appears on the OS map of 1857 and may be taken as part of the improvements to the estate carried out by Thomas Montgomery in the 1830s.
Birch Hill House was built c 1785 by a Mr Bristow; after having several owners it was taken over by Thomas Montgomery who owned it in the 1830s, completing the stables and office houses by 1838. Birch Hill House was later re-named Ardnaveigh and was demolished c 1943 after a fire, leaving only the stableyard and offices which are now separated from this former gate lodge by a new road. Part of the building touches the area of monument no. ANT50:8.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1832, Co Antrim 50.
Secondary Sources
1. 1. J.A.K. Dean, The Gate Lodges of Ulster (UAHS, Belfast, 1994), p 5.
2. UAHS, Antrim and Ballymena (Belfast, 1969), p 12.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This is an early to mid-19th century building which retains some of its original exterior features but has been extended in a modern style with the consequent loss of some features and the loss of its original overall character.