60 Abbeyview

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A single storey, hipped roofed house, of symmetrical front, with two windows to each side of a central doorway. Main entrance faces south.

South elevation: walls rendered with a dry dashed finish using pebbles, with smooth rendered surrounds to windows and entrance door, projecting eaves course, frieze and stringcourse, and rusticated quoins to extremities. Roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses, with dark grey tiles to ridges. Cast iron gutter returning to sides, mounted on timber fascia over eaves course.
Three chimneys, one behind main ridge, to left, one on right-hand gable, and one to rear at left-hand side; smooth cement rendered with projecting cap; three original pots to central chimney, others have two modern pots.
Windows are rectangular timber sliding sash, vertically hung, 6 over 6 with horns, with thin glazing bars, with dark brown varnished finish; projecting stone cills, painted.
The entrance is recessed in an elliptically arched opening with looped and radial fanlight. The rectangular 6-panel door, a later replacement, and single pane sidelights have barley-sugar twist or rope-patterned pilasters; outer pair of pilasters have original brass bell-pulls; door has dark brown stained finish; modern tiled doorstep.

Along the front of the house is a low smooth rendered plinth wall with short pillars and surmounted by modern hooped railings, containing flower beds banked up to just below window cill level.
Extending to the right, and set back, is a yard wall, rendered with wet dash above a smooth plinth; projecting flat concrete copings; rectangular doorway next to main house, containing a ledged timber door in plain reveals.

West elevation: roof slated as previous but ends in a gable to left; walls rendered as previous, with smooth rendered projecting plinth; cast iron gutter with circular cast iron downpipe to right-hand side. Two windows, similar to entrance front. Extending to left-hand side is a single-storey garage with low pitched asphalt roof: timber fascia; walls rendered using wet dash with smooth plinth; modern garage door with two-light plain rectangular fanlight.

Rear elevation: hipped slated roof as previous, with two gabled projecting returns; walls rendered with wet dash; one window in central gabled block, modern rectangular timber fixed light with top-hung vent.
To right of central gabled return is the side of the single-storey flat roofed garage; cast iron gutter and downpipe.

East elevation: hipped roof slated as previous; wall rendered as west elevation, at left-hand side up to point where enclosing yard wall projects; beyond that the east elevation is rendered with a wet dash. Cast iron gutter with two cast iron downpipes. Extending to the right-hand side is a lower flat roofed block with blank wall wet-dashed.
Rear doorway to yard is segmental arched with a modern segmental headed timber sheeted door; modern metal handles.

East wall within yard: ground floor smooth cement rendered, with roughcast to first floor above. One window, rectangular timber fixed light with top-hung vent, in plain reveals; rectangular timber doorway containing a modern glazed flush timber door with timber board above head, presumably covering a fanlight.
Inner walls of yard are smooth cement rendered with a lean-to outbuilding against the front yard wall: brickwork with smooth cement render; two rectangular sheeted timber doors; corrugated iron roof; PVC gutter and downpipe; contains two store rooms. Lightweight timber outside toilet with perspex roofed shelter against rear wall.

SETTING: The building stands facing directly onto a tarmac roadway adjacent to a former industrial site; roadway merges all round with hard standings, with an extensive concrete area opposite the house; two-storey red brick terraces of former mill housing stand adjacent to the south-west, and red brick industrial buildings to the east and south-east. To the rear the garden runs down to the bank of the Six Mile Water. Immediately to the west side of the house is a modern concrete brick paved area approached by a pair of modern ironwork gates with modern rustic yellow brick piers; concrete caps and ball finials; gateway linked to house by similar railings and pier and small segmental arched pedestrian gate. West boundary formed by hedge and fence. East boundary and front boundary to east of house formed by high spiked steel fence which abuts a modern steel public bridge at the south-east, leading over the river.

Historical information

Precise date of building not known but it appears on the OS map of 1832; named as Muckamore Lodge on the OS map of 1857, 'the Lodge' having been described in the 1830s as the residence of Francis Whittle. Francis Whittle's residence in the 1830s was also given as 'the Cottage' although another source of the time refers to 'Muckamore cottage' as 'the residence of Latimer Whittle Esquire', and describes it as "situated within a few yards of the Six Mile Water and in the townland of Muckamore. The grounds, which are confined, adjoin those of Muckamore Abbey and merely consist of a lawn of trifling extent. The cottage is small but neat looking."
Previously there was a terrace of three single-storey houses extending from the west side of the rear, apparently back to back with a terrace of four two-storey houses down the east side: the former appear to be shown on the OS map of 1832, with the latter appearing by the OS map 1857; these were all demolished c 1965. With the ground to the rear thus cleared the house was encircled by a roadway used by mill traffic until 1997 when it came into the possession of the present owners and was enclosed and planted as a private rear garden.
The house has been reported as appearing on Lendrick's map of 1780.
House owned in 1950s and early 1960s by a Mr Grainger, owner of the adjacent mill and chairman of York Street Flax Spinning Mill; acquired by present owners in 1963.

References – Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1832, Co Antrim 50.
2. OS Map 1857, Co Antrim 50.
3. OS Map 1962-3, Co Antrim 50.
4. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Vol 35: Parishes of County Antrim XIII, 1833, 1835, 1838 (Belfast, 1996), p 62.
5. S. Lewis, A topographical dictionary of Ireland (London, 1837), Vol I, p 38 (reference to 'the Cottage', residence of 'F. Whittle Esq'); and Vol II, p 407 (reference to 'the Lodge', of F. Whittle, Esq').
6. Old photograph of house c 1900 in possession of owners in 2000.
7. Aerial photographs of house before and after enclosing of garden to rear, in possession of owners in 2000.
Secondary Sources
1. UAHS, West Antrim (Belfast, 1970), pp 5 (plate d), 13 (no 30).
2. R. Pierce and A. Coey, Taken for Granted (NIHBC, 1984), p 67.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
H+. Alterations enhancing the building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This is a late Georgian house which despite some alterations to the rear has important architectural features that are of special interest.