Larkhill, 10 Garlandstown Road, Crumlin, Co Antrim, BT29 4HQ

Larkhill is a mid-Victorian house of essentially Georgian proportions and style, retaining much of its exterior and interior features. The building is a two-storey gabled structure constructed of blackstone rubble with red brick quoins and dressings, faced west toward the main road. The roof is covered in Bangor blue slates laid in regular courses with blue ridge tiles, and features two chimneys positioned one on each gable. The left-hand chimney appears to have been rebuilt above the haunching in a different colour tone, while both are constructed in yellow brick with blue brick diapers, strings and cornice.

The blackstone rubble walls are set with galleting to original lime mortar. Red brick quoins define the extremities, with blocked red brick dressings arranged in three courses framing the windows and doorway. Red brick segmental arches span the openings, featuring flat undersides to the windows and arched tops to the doorway. A moulded red brick cornice runs beneath the eaves. Moulded cast iron guttering with short returns to each gable drains the roof.

The west elevation is symmetrical with five windows on the first floor. Windows throughout are rectangular timber frames with vertically hung sliding sashes of 2 over 2 configuration with margin lights and horns. The sashes rest in cement-rendered reveals with projecting stone cills. Most panes retain original glass. Below the ground floor windows are original rectangular iron ventilator grilles set in red brick surrounds.

The main entrance faces west in a recessed segmental arch. The doorway comprises a pair of PVC unfluted column shafts and bases with original plaster Ionic capitals supporting a deep wooden lintel with fluted front edge and surmounted by a moulded timber cornice. A plain segmental fanlight sits above the door. The door itself is original, rectangular with four raised and fielded panels, set in a rectangular frame with tongued and grooved sheeting to the faces behind the columns. Original knocker and doorhandle remain in place. The doorstep is a deep semi-circular form in concrete.

The north gable features similar blackstone rubble walling with red brick quoins to both extremities. Red brick dressings extend from the right-hand quoins to frame two windows, one on each floor at the left-hand side. These windows are rectangular timber sashes matching those on the entrance front. A moulded red brick projecting corbel course runs along the roof verges, raking up and running across at the base of the chimney. Red brick stacks in random courses rise from ground floor and first floor levels within the main gable below the chimney.

The rear elevation is two storeys, three windows wide to the first floor. The roofing, chimneys and general walling treatments match the front elevation. A central projecting gabled porch appears to be a later addition, constructed in red brick with a projecting stoneware eaves course. The gable is smooth rendered and painted, containing a datestone inscribed "1875". The porch roof is covered in Bangor blue slates of fish-scale pattern with ridge tile and painted wooden barge boards. The porch door is rectangular timber, ledged with a 6-pane glazed panel and fitted with a modern metal handle, set in a moulded frame of cement reveals now fractured at the head where the flat arch bricks have dislodged.

The ground floor of the rear elevation contains four windows. From left to right these are: a timber sliding sash, vertically hung, 6 over 6 with horns; a timber sliding sash, vertically hung, 1 over 1 with horns; a modern rectangular timber fixed light with top-hung vent (a replacement); and to the right of the porch, a wider window matching the entrance front type. All ground floor windows have similar surrounds to previous examples with projecting stone cills. Three windows occupy the first floor with matching surrounds and cills. The central window is deeper, resembling a stair window, and retains original Victorian pattern obscured glass with coloured margin lights.

The south gable has similar blackstone rubble and quoins to the north gable, with one random stack of red brick rising from the first floor only. Cast iron guttering extends from the returns of the main elevation gutters and discharges into a central cast iron downpipe with moulded hopper. Two windows occupy the first floor, one to each side, matching the entrance front type. One ground floor window sits to the right-hand side: a rectangular metal fixed light with side-hung casement set in a roughly cemented surround with projecting concrete cill.

The precise date of construction is not known with certainty, but the building appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1901–2. A predecessor structure called "Heathery Hill" appears with outbuildings on the Ordnance Survey map of 1858. The datestone inscribed "1875" on the rear porch may relate to the overall rebuilding. The present owner's father purchased the property in 1912.

The building stands facing the main road, well set back from it within its own grounds but visible from the roadside. Access is via a long concrete drive, contained within a partly walled garden. The garden wall is of basalt rubble, modern in construction, with old iron gates mounted on square piers. The front of the house is grassed, partly enclosed by horizontal wooden fencing, with a loose stone hard standing across the front and modern concrete kerbing to the grassed areas.

To the rear is a farmyard comprising a number of rendered and gabled outbuildings of no architectural quality and large corrugated iron barns of no architectural quality. The outbuildings are semi-derelict with broken doors and some windows now open, currently used as stores. Small iron gates of no special interest flank each side of the house, and projecting from the rear wall is a third iron gate in modernist style of the 1930s, which appears to be a reused gate from a Belfast school by R.S. Wilshere. The gateway from the main road is of rustic brick with a pair of modern iron gates, all of mid-twentieth-century appearance.