167 Belfast Road, Muckamore, Co Antrim, BT41 2ET

167 Belfast Road, Muckamore

This is an attached three-bay one-and-a-half storey house built around 1820, located to the south of Belfast Road. It forms part of a significant group of six picturesque dwellings along this road, and is the only one in the group that retains its original form without a rear extension.

The house has a rectangular plan with pitched slate roofs featuring deep overhanging eaves. The main roof incorporates a central polychromatic brick chimney with three clay pots. The gables are finished with fretted timber bargeboards, finials, and dropped circle motifs. The walls are roughcast-rendered, except for the north elevation which is smooth-rendered and painted.

The principal elevation faces north. The entrance door, located in the left bay, has a Tudor-arch-headed opening with painted moulded surround and contains an original square-headed timber panelled door with Tudor arch top panels. The other bays at ground floor contain windows. The central window is topped by a pitched dormer containing the first floor window. Windows are square-headed replacement top-hung timber casements set within Tudor-arch-headed openings, with painted masonry sills and painted window reveals.

The south elevation has a flat-roofed timber dormer at first floor level to the west and a pitched lucarne to the east, containing a first floor window with a ground floor window below. A square-headed window sits to the west, and a timber panelled entrance door with Tudor-arch-headed architrave occupies the centre. The west elevation has a single window at each level.

The house retains cast iron ogee gutters and round downpipes. The western bay has been extended. The east elevation is abutted by the adjoining property at 169 Belfast Road.

The house is directly accessed from Belfast Road to the north. The main elevation is bounded to the west by modern concrete block walling with square roughcast pillars supporting timber gates. A timber shed stands to the south, and the site is bounded to the south by hedging.

Historically, the house appears on the first edition Ordnance Survey map dated 1834, and the plan form remained unchanged through subsequent map editions up to 1962. The Griffiths Valuation of 1859 records William Chaine as the Immediate Lessor and Thomas Boyde as the occupier, with the house valued at £2 5s 0d.

The replacement casement windows are noted as detracting from its appearance, but the house remains of architectural interest for its style, proportion, ornamentation, and plan form, as well as for its group value within the ensemble of dwellings along Belfast Road.