Ballynascreen House

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Five-bay two-storey house with attic and basement, built c.1870, facing south and located to the east of Shore Road. Rectangular-on-plan, two two-storey returns to rear, single-storey extension to west gable. There is an additional building attached to north gable of returns.

Pitched natural slate roof with two wall-head dormers to front pitch and one to north each having a rolled lead ridge; rendered chimneystacks with bellcast coping and circular terracotta chimney pots; overhanging sheeted timber eaves and plain bargeboards; cast-iron rainwater goods. Walling is roughcast with moulded string course over roughcast plinth. Windows are square headed 1/1 timber sliding sashes. Those to principal elevation have moulded architraves; all have precast masonry cills; those to ground floor are pedimented (unless otherwise stated).

The principal (south) elevation is five openings wide at each floor, including central entrance door contained in central single-storey porch with balustraded parapet. Recessed entrance with chamfered reveals, surmounted by round-headed lead-covered canopy supported on Ionic columns and dentilled entablature; double-leaf timber six-panelled entrance doors with timber carved swag detail and radial stained glass fanlight above, original brass door knob and bell; all accessed by four masonry steps enclosed by plinth wall to each side; window to each cheek. Two windows to each side at ground floor, five windows to first floor. One window to extension at left.

Left gable is abutted by extension to ground floor; two plainly detailed windows to first floor; two diminished windows to attic. Extension has paired window to right and two smaller windows to left, all plainly detailed; there are two small windows below plinth (lighting basement). L-plan return abuts adjoining north elevation of extension and main block; hipped roof, otherwise detailed as house; openings consist of stained glass window to right projecting side, door to left cheek; single window at first floor left. Return further extended by attached house (see later), detailed as main block.

North elevation is abutted by two-storey return to east and one-and-a-half-storey return to west with internal courtyard to centre.

Right gable has three windows to ground and first floor, two to attic. Abutted by two-storey return to right which adjoins attached building; ground floor has window to left and uPVC door to right; two windows at first floor. Adjoining building has uPVC windows throughout.

Set within mature gardens to south, east and west. Bounded by shore at east and to Shore Road at west by random rubble walling. Attached two-storey house with principal access to west gable; series of modern extensions to north. Detailed as main house; uPVC windows throughout. Access to both houses is shared with that of neighbouring houses to south.

Roof: Natural slate with rolled lead ridge
Walling: Roughcast with moulded string course; roughcast plinth
Windows: Square headed 1/1 timber sliding sash
Rainwater Goods: Cast-iron ogee profile

Historical information

A structure similar in plan to the main front block (present no.39) is shown on the OS map of 1832. In the valuation of September 1836 this is recorded as the home of ‘Miss [Jane] Gregg’ with the dimensions given as 50½ft x 34½ x 25 (plus 8ft high ‘basement storey’), a return of 18 x 10 x 8½ and outbuildings of 47 x 27½ x 16 and 18 x 14 x 7½. At this point there was a separate, lower two-storey house just a few metres to the north, which is also noted as the property of Miss Gregg, with another of similar height slightly further to the north-east also in her possession.

The date of construction is uncertain. Lands ‘called Ballynascreen’ (sometimes spelt Ballinascreen) had been granted by the Corporation of Carrickfergus in perpetuity to Ezekiel Davys Wilson in c.1775, but no substantial residences are shown in this vicinity (‘B:nascreen’) on John Lendrick’s Co Antrim map of 1780 nor on James Williamson’s 1808 revision to the same. In April 1815, however, John Gregg, ‘Ballinascreen’, was advertising ‘a comfortable dwelling house with offices and an enclosed yard to be let…on the best part of the Carrickfergus shore for sea bathing’, whilst ‘John Gregg Esq. of Ballynascreen’ is referred to in a Belfast News-Letter report of May 1817 and as the owner of one of the ‘gentlemen’s seats’ in the Carrickfergus vicinity in 1821. All of this would seem to indicate the presence of a locally-significant dwelling belonging to him at this time. It is likely that Gregg himself, a Belfast merchant with premises in Castle Street, was indeed the builder of the house, and that he was also responsible for the construction of the two neighbouring dwellings noted in the above-mentioned valuation. It is also probable that he began building the first of these houses - possibly no.39 itself - in mid-1811, for in July of that year he advertised for 'a good stone mason…for building a dwelling house, a few miles from town…'. The 1839 OS Memoirs refers to him having built ‘Ballynaverin [undoubtedly a misspelling of Ballynascreen*]…a plain 2-storey house, slated and situated on the shore..about 35 years ago…for the accommodation of sea bathers’, which would date the beginnings of his developments in the area to c.1804, but most of the contemporary evidence suggests that no.39 and its near neighbours were built c.1811-15.

The revised OS map of 1857 shows an arrangement similar to that of 1832. Sometime between this and the carrying out of the second valuation of September 1859, however, the house to the immediate north must have been demolished, for it is not referred to by the valuers at that time. They do record that the main house (i.e. no.39 which they describe as ‘old’) had been ‘newly roofed and slated’, though oddly they make no mention of the porch, which must have been present in some form by this point, for it is shown on the 1857 map.

The various changes to the house and wider site (noted by the valuers as ‘a good situation for bathers on the shore of Belfast Lough’) were probably carried out by Mrs. Ellen Millar, who acquired the lease sometime between 1842 and 1859. A widow, she went on to the retain the property until her death (at 101 years of age!) in 1906, after which it passed to her younger daughter, Eliza Millar.

Miss Millar let the property to Col. J.L. Alison JP and in 1910 a major refurbishment and enlargement of the building was carried out, with the main block reroofed once again, the large southern rear return (now part of present no.41) added and the outbuildings ‘improved’, the rateable value almost doubling from £44 to £80 as a result. The single-storey extension to the northern gable appears to be of this date also.

In c.1917 Robert Noel Anderson took over the tenancy and extended and heightened the northern return, with several other smaller changes also made to this side. He retained the property until c.1926-27 when it was acquired by Edwin Darley Hill, the Chairman of the Northern Bank. Following Mr. Hill’s death in 1935 the house (a ‘delightfully situated residence’ with ‘3 reception rooms, 5 principal bedrooms, central heating, electric light [and] well laid-out grounds’) was sold to John Marshall Davies, the Registrar of the NI High Court. He died c.1943 and in 1946 Ballynascreen House was purchased by the Belfast Hospital for Sick Children for use as a convalescent home. This plan was not followed through, and the building was resold later that year back into private hands.

In late 1951 the then owner, Mr. William F. Erskine, was granted planning permission to develop the site for additional housing ‘subject to conditions’. At some point following this the rear returns and the outbuildings beyond were extended and converted to two separate dwellings, the present nos.41 and 43, with the three properties marked on the 1966 OS map.

Since then, all three have gone through a number of different occupiers / owners, no.39 itself having changed hands in 1966 and again in c.1981.

[*Confusingly, all three dwellings belonging to Gregg in the area are referred to as ‘Ballynascreen’ during this period.]

References – Primary sources
1 ‘A map of the County of Antrim from actual survey by J[ohn] Lendrick’ – 1780 [‘Republish’d with the addition of new roads &c to 1808 by J[ames] Williamson’]
2 ‘Belfast News-Letter’ – 19 July 1811, p.3; 12 August 1812, p.3; 21 April 1815, p.1; 27 May 1817, p.2; 4 April 1826, p.3; 9 May 1851, p.3; 25 November 1937, p.1; 29 September 1943, p.1; 24 January 1944, p.6; 4 September 1951, p.6; 15 August 1970, p.1
3 OS map 6in County series, Antrim sheet 52 – 1832, 1857, 1902, 1920, 1938, 1951; IG sheet 114-7 - 1966
4 ‘Northern Whig’ – 9 April 1835, p.3; 12 December 1840, p.3; 31 August 1861, p.8; 10 February 1917, p.1; 8 April 1927, p.1; 26 July 1935, p.8; 10 March 1936, p.1; 9 April 1946, p.4
5 PRONI VAL1B/1/52 First valuation, Carrickfergus parish – 1836
6 OS Memoirs, Carrickfergus parish – 1839-40
7 ‘Vindicator’ – 6 February 1841, p.3
8 ‘Ulster Times’ – 31 December 1842, p.3
9 PRONI VAL2B/1/22A Second valuation, Carrickfergus parish – 1859
10 PRONI VAL12B/7/5A-E Annual valuation revision books, Carrickfergus ED – 1861-94
11 ‘Belfast Morning News’ – 20 December 1862, p.2
12 PRONI VAL12B/7/6A-D Annual valuation revision books, Carrickfergus (rural) ED – 1894-1929
13 PRONI VAL12A/1/82 Valuers office notebook, Larne rural district Vol.XIII – 1909-10
14 PRONI VAL12A/1/85 Valuers office notebook, Larne rural district Vol.XVI – 1915-20
15 ‘Belfast Telegraph’ – 7 September 1936, p.2; 14 November 1951, p.7; 15 October 1981, p.24
16 ‘Larne Times’ – 21 November 1946, p.10; 25 August 1949, p.8; 6 September 1951
17 ‘Banbridge Chronicle’ – 27 August 1955, p.5
18 ‘Coventry Evening Telegraph’ – 15 August 1970, p.31

Secondary sources
19 McSkimin, Samuel ‘The history and antiquities of the County of the town of Carrickfergus…’, (New edition, Belfast, 1909), pp.172-73

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

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

Criteria for listing: historic interest

X. Local Interest

Evaluation

A substantial attached two-storey five-bay house, built c.1870, facing south and located to the east of Shore Road. Original plan form and ornamentation have been maintained including balustraded parapet fronted by round-headed lead covered canopy supported on Ionic order columns and dentilled entablature. Despite alterations to the adjoining building to the north, the house contributes significantly to the architectural heritage of the local area and is an attractive feature of the shoreline setting.

General comments

Note added 27/03/2026: Please note the Historic Information for this currently under review.