Historic Building Details

HB Ref No:
HB20/14/001

Address :
Glen Oak House 1 Nutts Corner Road Crumlin Co Antrim BT29 4BW

Townland:
Crosshill

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Survey 2:
Record Only

Date of Listing:
11/12/1974 00:00:00

Date of De-listing:
20/03/2003 00:00:00

Current Use:
House

Former Use
House

Conservation Area:
No

Industrial Archaeology:
No

Vernacular:
No

Thatched:
No

Monument:
No

Derelict:
No

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OS Map No:
128/10

IG Ref:
J1565 7649

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Owner Category

Private

Exterior Description And Setting

A 1½ storey house with segmental bays projecting from the two end gables, and a long two-storey rear return, all reconstructed from a previously two-storey house. Main entrance faces west. West elevation symmetrical, five windows wide to the main block, with a segmental bay at each extremity; central entrance. Hipped roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses; three hipped dormer windows, slated as main block, with similar slates to cheeks and front. Walls rendered, wet dash using crushed stones; smooth cement rendered plinth; modern steel ventilator grilles in plinth, one below each window flanking doorway. Entrance recessed in a moulded semi-circular headed opening; rectangular timber door, panelled, of unusual quadrant design to lower portion; Victorian brass knocker; doorhead embellished with raised design of scrolling acanthus on the frieze, below a coved and ornamented cornice; semi-circular fanlight with radial glazing bars. Three broad stone steps to front door. Windows rectangular timber sliding sash, vertically hung, 3 over 3, with horns, with exposed sash boxes, set in moulded surrounds; projecting stone cills. Windows of dormers are small paned rectangular timber casements. Moulded metal gutters, with PVC downpipe in the angle of each short return with the projecting end bays. Segmental single-storey bay to each end gable: conical roofs with small slates in regular courses; weather vane on bay to north; moulded g.r.p. gutters; two windows in each bay, as previous to main block except window head and cill curved. Rear elevation of front block at north side is a blank wall; roof slated as previous to front, with one modern rooflight; one chimney, smooth cement rendered, lined and blocked, with moulded cornice; re-used old pot. North elevation of return: two-storey; gabled roof slated as previous; two chimneys, one on east gable and one at intermediate position, similar to previous chimney but with two pots each. Walling rendered as previous; moulded metal gutter with PVC downpipe. Ground floor has a rectangular doorway next to main block; modern glazed and panelled door set in original moulded surround; to left are two French windows comprising new glazed doors with small panes set in plain unmoulded reveals; to left are five rectangular windows, all of four-light side-hung casement type, new, set in plain reveals with projecting concrete cills. First floor has seven windows of varying size, all new, rectangular timber, and all incorporating small-paned casements. East gable of return is two-storey, with flush verge to roof; wall rendered as previous; one window to first floor, rectangular timber small-paned casements, new; large doorway to ground floor, segmental arched in brick, containing double doors of diagonal tongued and grooved boards; leads into open roofed yard area. Rear elevation of front block on south side has a lower single storey, flat-roofed projection containing a rectangular window, small-paned casements with projecting concrete cill; roof forms a roof terrace approached from first floor of rear return. Roof of rear of front block slated as previous to front; one chimney as previous to north end; one hipped dormer to right of chimney, similar to previous dormers. South elevation of return: two-storey, but with deep roof sweeping down low to single storey height in part. Roof slated as previous. Large conservatory with glazing of roof flush with slated roof. Conservatory now encloses part of two-storey elevation of return with former exterior windows and cills contained within; new chimney to right of conservatory, detailed as previous; modern flush rooflight, and modern flush glazing over covered yard area to right-hand side. Walling rendered as previous. Windows rectangular timber, of casement type, but all new. SETTING: The house stands in its own grounds set well back from the main road. Attractive well kept garden and lawns to the north with a tarmac driveway sweeping round to the rear. Concrete cobbled driveway branches off to the front of the house and continues to the south side. Extensive timber pergola to the immediate south of the house. Curved screen walls, rendered as the house, project back from the end gable of the rear return to form a rear yard, enclosed on east side by a two-storey range of outbuildings, much modernised and remodelled, with a partly walled garden beyond. To the west and south, downhill from the house, lies an extensive former mill complex.

Architects

Not Known

Historical Information

The original date of the building is uncertain but a house called Glen Oak is shown on a map of 1782, the residence of Rowley Heyland who built the adjacent flour-mills in 1765. The house was described in the 1830s as having been built shortly after the mills. By 1817 it had become the residence of James McCawley (as the name was then given), and by the 1830s that of his son Robert Macauley. From 1861 the lease of both house and mill was held by James Hunter, a flour miller with property also in Dunmurry and Antrim, until his bankruptcy in 1871. In 1886 the house and mill property was taken over by the Ulster Woollen Company, later Ulster Woollen Mills Ltd, until 1971. By 1970 the house had been described as “now deserted and being fast over-run by dry rot”. During the 1970s the property was owned by Silentnight Ltd of Colne in Lancashire, following which it was taken over by the present owner who reconstructed the house in its present form, demolishing the first floor of the main front block, replacing it by a lower roof with three dormer windows, and rearranging the interior layout and remodelling the south face of the lower east wing or rear return. In the course of this work the entire woodwork and internal finishes of the house were stripped and replaced although not all to the original design. Originally the house was of two storeys throughout. It was described in the first survey in 1972 as “A two-storey five bay roughcast house with slated roof hipped at front. Two-storey, two-window segmental bays project on gables. Twelve-pane windows, reduced in height on upper floor, are set in square moulded openings. The entrance is recessed in a moulded semi-circular headed opening. Two-storey return of much reduced height with Georgian-glazed windows, some triple. Poor condition. Outbuildings are harled; the lodge is derelict.” The gate lodge has now been enlarged and remodelled and is in separate ownership from the main house. References – Primary Sources 1. J. Lendrick, A map of the County of Antrim from Actual Survey (London, 1782). 2. OS Map 1832-3, Co Antrim 59. 3. OS Map 1859, Co Antrim 59 (shows gate lodge for the first time). 4. Ordnance Survey Memoirs of Ireland, Vol 35: Parishes of County Antrim XIII, 1833, 1835, 1838 (Belfast, 1996), pp 14, 47-8. 5. S. Lewis, Topographical Dictionary of Ireland (London, 1837), p 133. 6. Old photographs in possession of owner in 1999. Secondary Sources 1. U.A.H.S., West Antrim (Belfast, 1970), p 9. 2. J.A.K. Dean, The Gate Lodges of Ulster (Belfast, 1994), p 16. 3. C.E.B. Brett, Buildings of County Antrim (Belfast, 1996), p 160.

Criteria for Listing

Architectural Interest

Not listed

Historic Interest

Not listed

Evaluation

This building retains a semblance of its original block plan, including the uncommon feature of curved bays at each end. It retains the original detailing to such elements as doors and windows, although virtually all the fabric except for the masonry carcass is replacement material. The original architectural form and mass has been drastically changed to such an extent that it cannot now be considered a 18th century house.

General Comments

Date of Survey

15 May 1999