Glenhurst

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey gabled rendered house with a lower single storey gabled block to the south end. Main entrance faces east.

Roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses with deep overhangs to the gables; two chimneys symmetrically arranged, smooth cement rendered, with black painted blocking courses and one modern black pot each. Cast iron gutter with cast iron downpipe to right-hand end returning to north gable.
Walls smooth cement rendered, lined and blocked, painted white.
Windows are Tudor arched timber sliding sash vertically hung, with metal glazing bars, 6 over 6 with margin lights and intersecting tracery lights, without horns, set in plain reveals; reveals painted black; angled stone cills, painted black; Tudor style moulded rectangular drip moulds to ground floor windows. First floor windows are reduced in size. Main entrance is a panelled and glazed rectangular timber door with coloured glass margins decoratively etched, below a Tudor arched fanlight of nine panes with margins and intersecting tracery, all set between plain painted pilasters on moulded bases, carrying a moulded pedimented hood. Modern tiled doorstep extending to a front path and steps up to front pedestrian gateway.
Extending to the right, in same plane, is the side of a single storey lean-to on the north gable, similarly rendered, with flush verge; and extending to the right of that, in the same plane, is a low screen wall to the front yard, surmounted by looped wrought iron railings.
Extending to the left, set back slightly, is a lower single storey block, two windows wide; roof as previous, with one chimney on the gable, as previous; gutter as previous, with a cast iron downpipe to the left-hand end. Walling as previous; window openings and label moulds as previous but openings blind, blocked with smooth cement render.

South gable of main house is rendered as previous; moulded barge boards to overhanging eaves, on a pair of shaped brackets; tongued and grooved soffits. South gable of additional block is rendered as entrance front; overhanging eaves with moulded and shaped barge boards including scalloped underside, with shaped timber finial; plain sheeted soffits. Two windows, similar to ground floor of entrance front, except rectangular, with plain panel at head below arch, and with horns.

Rear elevation comprises main block, two storeys, one window wide to left of a gabled two-storey projection and two windows wide to the right of it, with the lower block to the right, two windows wide, and a lower block to the left one window wide. Roofs slated as previous; walling rendered as previous; cast iron gutters and downpipes; PVC soil pipe to gabled projection.
Single storey to the right has two windows, rectangular timber, sashed as previous to entrance front, but set in plain rectangular openings; angled stone cills.
Main block has rectangular timber sliding sash windows, 6 over 6 to ground floor, mainly, with 3 over 6 to first floor, mainly, all with horns and with exposed sash boxes. Gabled projection has one window to each floor in south side, similar to ground floor adjacent; north side and west gable are blank.
Single storey block to the left has similar slated roof, walling, and rainwater goods to main front elevation; overhanging eaves with timber fascia; one window, sashed as rest of ground floor of rear elevation.
Extending to the left beyond single storey block is a basalt rubble outbuilding with a corrugated iron roof and a rectangular timber small paned window in brick reveals.

North gable of north outbuilding is rendered with wet dash, extending to left into end wall of a flat roofed block.

North gable of house similar to south, but with a long single-storey gabled wing projecting to the north, returning across the ground floor of the gable as a lean-to projecting bay, both facing into a small yard partly open to the front. Lean-to bay has wall facing yard rendered as previous; roof slated as previous; rectangular timber door with sidelight window, modern rectangular timber fixed light with top-hung vent. Single-storey wing has front wall rendered as previous; two windows, rectangular timber small-paned casements with concrete cills; flat soffit of overhanging eaves forming head to windows; roof slated as previous.

Extending to north from single-storey wing is a gabled outbuilding: wall of snecked basalt, partly whitened, with brick block dressings; panelled and flush timber doors and derelict windows; corrugated iron roof.

Yard surfaced in concrete. Inner face of enclosing walls of small yard to each end and along east side are smooth cement rendered; east side contains a corrugated asbestos roofed shelter and a rectangular timber ledged and braced door, up five steps, leading out to the public footpath.

SETTING: The building stands facing on to the main road set back from it slightly with a gravelled front garden containing a concrete path in front of it. Front boundary formed by a low rendered plinth wall surmounted by original iron railings, with an original iron gate set between plain rendered piers. Gravelled area to south, containing flower beds and a detached modern garage of smooth rendered walls and slated roof, with lawns to the south of that. Ground level drops steeply to rear in terraces, gravelled and hedged, reached by a flight of brick steps with modern timber handrail; overgrown patch of ground to the west.

Historical information

Precise date of building not known but it appears on the OS map of 1857 and stylistically may be dated to c 1840. Previously the mill manager's house for the Chaine family's mill which stood to the north, it was sold by the liquidator of the York Street Flax Spinning Company in 1958 to become a private house. Part of front garden and a screen wall removed due to road widening in 1980s.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 50 (but not named).
Secondary Sources
1. UAHS, Antrim and Ballymena (Belfast, 1969), pp 11 (plate a), 13.
2. R. Pierce and A. Coey, Taken for Granted (NIHBC, 1984), p 121.
3. C.E.B. Brett, Buildings of County Antrim (UAHS, Belfast, 1996), pp 196-7.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
H-. Alterations detracting from building
J. Setting
K. Group value

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This is an early 19th century house of distinctive proportions and style, marked by its use of Tudor Revivalist arches to windows. It is of limited inherent architectural or historic interest but its chief virtue is in the attractive nature of its exterior to the front.