Clady Cottage, 17 Clady Road, Dunadry, Templepatrick, Ballyclare, Co. Antrim, BT41 4QR

Clady Cottage is a late 18th-century one-and-a-half-storey, three-bay, direct-entry house of probable 1790 origin, situated in the townland of Straidballymorris approximately one and a half miles south-west of Templepatrick, off the Templepatrick to Antrim road. It is reached by turning left off that road, then left again beyond the railway bridge, with the house lying some 500 yards along on the right-hand side. It is notable as one of the relatively few surviving thatched houses in County Antrim with documented occupancy linked to the local linen industry.

The front elevation and north-west gable are faced in exposed random rubble stone, with the remainder of the exterior finished in render. The roof is half-hipped and thatched. Two chimneystacks, each with narrow corbelling and two tall pots, are set equidistantly on the ridge. A datestone is inset into the fabric and records both the year of erection (1790) and the year of renovation (1958), though the stone itself does not appear to be original and was most likely added at the time of the 1958 works.

The principal entrance is particularly fine. The door — an eight-panelled design with moulded and fielded panels — is recessed within a classical doorcase. The fanlight above is elliptically arched with radial glazing, and decorative sidelights are set within reeded pilasters. Flanking the entrance on each side is an eight-over-eight vertically sliding sash window with small sash stops and sills of traditional depth; the openings are arched in red brick, those over the windows showing a slight rise.

The south-east gable has two six-over-six vertically sliding sash windows with small sash stops and sills of traditional depth at low level, and a four-by-two top-hung casement above. The north-west gable has a single six-over-six vertically sliding sash window with small sash stops and a sill of traditional depth at low level, and a four-by-two top-hung casement above. The openings on this gable are spanned by voussoired stone arches.

At the rear, the thatched roof rises in eyebrow forms to accommodate three triple casement windows, each light divided into two-by-three panes. Also at the rear, starting from the north-west corner, there is a double casement with each light divided into two-by-three panes, surmounted by a radial fanlight, set within a rendered panel.

Flat-roofed extensions project from the rear of the building. Beginning at the north-west side, these include: a triple casement window with each light divided into two-by-three panes; a four-panelled door with leaded lights in the upper parts giving access to the kitchen; a former garage converted to include a tripartite window divided two-over-two, six-over-six, two-over-two with small sash stops and a sill of traditional depth, its rear elevation lit by a two-by-four casement; and, to the right of that window, a timber shed. The remaining side of the former garage has a small plain metal-framed casement and a door with one panel below a two-by-three upper light. The flat-roofed structure extending along the rear of the main house has a pair of casements with each light divided into two-by-three panes and a sill of traditional depth, flanked on either side by a pair of double doors with two-by-three panes over single panels and three vertical panes over a single panel on either side. All extensions are rendered, and their flat roofs have timber fascias. A concrete-brick chimneystack rises over the position of the boiler, which is housed within an enclosure in the kitchen.

The interior retains detailing consistent with the late 18th-century origin suggested by the datestone. The house was altered from its earlier appearance at the time of the 1958 renovation, and the detailing introduced at what appears to have been a mid-19th-century phase of alterations has been carried through consistently into the extensions.

The building appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1832 and is recorded in the near-contemporary valuation as a well-built and well-maintained thatched house occupied by a Mr Swan. Swan operated a flax mill nearby, as well as at least one bleach mill within the same townland of Straidballymorris (mentioned in the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1835). The house dimensions were recorded as 52 feet by 20½ feet by 10½ feet, with a slated section of 52 by 8 by 6½ feet and a thatched outbuilding of 48 by 18 by 7 feet. The combined rateable valuation for the house and the flax mill — which was itself also thatched — was £33 17s 0d. The fact that the house and mill were valued together suggests the dwelling was built to serve as the mill owner's residence. By the time of the second valuation of around 1860, the house and mill (by then described as a linen dye works) had passed to a Thomas Wallace, held on a lease from the Templeton Estate. At that point the house was rated separately from the industrial complex at £8. Three single-storey outbuildings were recorded alongside the house, measuring 16½ yards by 9, 19 by 5, and 8 by 5, the first two thatched and the last felted.

C. E. B. Brett, writing in The Buildings of County Antrim, records that the garden was laid out by John Cowan, who came from Scotland around 1880, and that Cowan's successors sold the property to the Webb family in 1958. The house was later occupied by Mr Charles Kinahan. The present owner acquired it in 1994.

The house was originally gabled, but was given its current half-hipped roof form in 1958, when thatchers from Norfolk used material from their own district to produce a bonnet roof. Subsequent thatching works have been as follows: re-thatching in 1978 by Gerry Agnew using straw, with repairs by the same contractor in 1984 also using straw; ridge repair in 1988 by Reedland Development of Sligo using rye straw; patching by Billy Kilpatrick in 1990; a thatching scheme by Thatching Advisory Services in 1992 using combed wheat reed; a major restoration of the entire building in 1994 by its then new owner; alteration of the rear extension around 2000; and re-thatching of the roof in 2002 by Master Thatchers North using Scottish water reed with a block-cut patterned straw ridge, agreed with the Environment and Heritage Service on the basis that the building is a gentleman's residence or cottage orné and the design matched the existing style. The rear returns were further altered in 2003.