Larkhill

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey gabled rubble blackstone house with red brick quoins and dressings. Main entrance faces west.

West elevation symmetrical, two-storeys, five windows wide to first floor. Roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses with blue ridge tiles. Two chimneys, one on each gable, yellow brick with blue brick diapers, strings and cornice, but left hand chimney looks rebuilt above haunching in different tone of colour.

Wall of blackstone rubble with galleting to original lime mortar; red brick quoins to extremities, and blocked red brick dressings, in three courses, to windows and doorway; red brick segmental arches over openings with flat underside to windows, arched to doorway; moulded red brick cornice. Moulded cast iron gutter, with short returns to each gable.

Windows rectangular timber, vertically hung, sliding sash, 2 over 2 with margin lights, with horns; cement rendered reveals; projecting stone cills; original glass in most of the panes. Below ground floor windows original rectangular iron ventilator grilles set in red brick surrounds.

Doorway recessed in segmental arch, comprises a pair of PVC unfluted column shafts and bases with original plaster Ionic capitals supporting a deep wooden lintel with fluted front edge surmounted by a moulded timber cornice; plain segmental fanlight over door; door original rectangular, 4-panel with raised and fielded panels, set in rectangular frame with tongued and grooved sheeting to faces behind columns. Original knocker and doorhandle.

Deep semi-circular doorstep in concrete.

North gable of similar walling as entrance front, with red brick quoins to right hand extremity and red brick quoins to left hand extremity extending to red brick dressings to two windows, one on each floor at left hand side. Windows rectangular timber, sashed as on entrance front, with similar details. Moulded red brick projecting corbel course to roof verges raking up and running across at base of chimney. Red brick to main gable below chimney in random stacks, one from ground floor and one from first floor.

Rear elevation two-storey, three windows wide to first floor. Slated roof and two chimneys, one on each gable as previous; walling, quoins, brick cornice and moulded cast iron gutter as on front elevation. Central projecting gabled porch, looks like later addition, built of red brick with projecting stoneware eaves course; smooth rendered and painted pediment containing datestone inscribed '1875'; roof of Bangor blue slates of fish-scale pattern, with ridge tile and painted wooden barge boards. Door rectangular timber ledged with 6-pane glazed panel; modern metal handle; moulded frame set in cement reveals, fractured at head where bricks of flat arch dislodged.
Four windows to ground floor, all in similar surrounds as previous, with projecting stone cills. From left to right ground floor windows are as follows: timber sliding sash, vertically hung, 6 over 6, with horns; timber sliding sash, vertically hung, 1 over 1, with horns; modern rectangular timber fixed light with top hung vent, replacement; and to right of porch, a wider window, sashed as previous to entrance front and north gable. Three windows to first floor with surrounds and cills as previous, sashed as previous to entrance front, but central one deeper, looks like stair window, and has original Victorian pattern obscured glass with coloured margin lights.

South gable of similar walling to north gable, with one random stack of red brick, from first floor only; cast iron guttering stretched from returns of main elevation gutters, discharges into central cast iron downpipe with moulded hopper. Two windows to first floor one to each side, similar to windows on entrance front. One window to ground floor to right hand side: rectangular metal fixed light with side hung casement, set in roughly cemented surround; projecting concrete cill.

SETTING: The building stands facing the main road, set well back from it in its own grounds but visible from the road. Approached by a long concrete drive and contained within a partly walled garden. Garden wall of basalt rubble, modern, with old iron gates mounted on square piers. Grassed garden to front of house, partly enclosed by horizontal wooden fencing. Loose stone hard standing across front of house, with modern concrete kerbing to grassed areas. Farmyard to rear of house, comprising a number of rendered and gabled outbuildings of no architectural quality and large corrugated iron barns of no architectural quality. Outbuildings are semi-derelict, with broken doors and some windows now open; used as stores. To each side of the house is a small iron gate, of no special interest, and projecting from rear wall is a third iron gate, in modernist style of the 1930s, which looks like a re-used gate from a Belfast school by R.S. Wilshere. Gateway from main road is of rustic brick with a pair of modern iron gates, all of mid-20th century appearance.

Historical information

Precise date of building not known for certain but appears on OS map of 1901-2; a predecessor, called 'Heathery Hill;, appears along with the outbuildings on the OS map of 1858. The date 1875 which appears on a datestone in the rear porch may relate to the rebuilding overall. The present owner's father bought the property in 1912..

References - Primary Sources
1. OS Map 1858, Co Antrim 59 (shows a house called 'Heathery Hill' along with outbuildings, but appears to be a predecessor of the present house).
2. OS Map 1901-2, Co Antrim 59.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

A. Style
B. Proportion
C. Ornamentation
D. Plan Form
E. Spatial Organisation
H-. Alterations detracting from building
I. Quality and survival of Interior
J. Setting

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

This is a mid-Victorian house of essentially Georgian proportions and style which retains much of its exterior and interior features.