Glenhurst, 28 Oldstone Road, Muckamore, Antrim, BT41 4PY

Glenhurst is an early 19th-century house of distinctive proportions and style, notable chiefly for the attractive nature of its exterior frontage. Stylistically it may be dated to around 1840, though the precise date of building is not known; it appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1857. The house was originally the mill manager's house for the Chaine family's mill which stood to the north, and was sold by the liquidator of the York Street Flax Spinning Company in 1958 to become a private house.

The building is distinguished by its use of Tudor Revivalist arches to windows, though it is of limited inherent architectural or historic interest beyond the visual appeal of this treatment. It comprises a two-storey gabled rendered main block with a lower single-storey gabled wing to the south end, additional outbuildings, and various single-storey projections.

The main entrance faces east. The roof is laid in Bangor blue slates in regular courses with deep overhangs to the gables. Two chimneys are symmetrically arranged, smooth cement rendered with black painted blocking courses and one modern black pot each. Cast iron gutters and downpipes run to the corners, with the main gutter returning to the north gable. The walls are smooth cement rendered, lined and blocked, and painted white throughout.

The principal windows are Tudor arched timber sliding sash, vertically hung, with metal glazing bars. Ground floor windows are 6 over 6 with margin lights and intersecting tracery lights, without horns, set in plain reveals with angled stone cills, all painted black. First-floor windows are reduced in size. Moulded rectangular drip moulds in Tudor style top the ground-floor windows.

The main entrance is a panelled and glazed rectangular timber door with coloured glass margins decoratively etched, placed below a Tudor arched fanlight of nine panes with margins and intersecting tracery. These are set between plain painted pilasters on moulded bases, which carry a moulded pedimented hood. A modern tiled doorstep extends to a front path with steps up to a front pedestrian gateway.

To the right of the entrance, in the same plane, is a single-storey lean-to on the north gable, similarly rendered with a flush verge; further right is a low screen wall to the front yard surmounted by looped wrought iron railings. To the left, set back slightly, is a lower single-storey block two windows wide, with matching roof detail and a single chimney. Window openings here are blind, blocked with smooth cement render.

The south gable of the main house is rendered as the front and features moulded barge boards to the overhanging eaves, supported on a pair of shaped brackets, with tongued and grooved soffits. The south gable of the additional block is rendered as the entrance front and displays overhanging eaves with moulded and shaped barge boards including a scalloped underside, with a shaped timber finial; plain sheeted soffits. Two windows on this gable are similar to the ground floor of the entrance front but rectangular, with a plain panel at the head below the arch and with horns.

The rear elevation comprises the main block of two storeys, one window wide to the left of a gabled two-storey projection and two windows wide to the right, with the lower block extending to the right (two windows wide) and a lower block to the left (one window wide). The main block has rectangular timber sliding sash windows, 6 over 6 to the ground floor and 3 over 6 to the first floor, with horns and exposed sash boxes. The gabled projection has one window to each floor on its south side, with the north side and west gable blank. The single-storey block to the right has two rectangular timber sashed windows in plain rectangular openings with angled stone cills. The single-storey block to the left has one sashed window and shares the roof, walling, and rainwater goods treatment of the main front elevation.

Extending to the left beyond the single-storey block is a basalt rubble outbuilding with a corrugated iron roof and a rectangular timber small-paned window in brick reveals. The north gable of the north outbuilding is rendered with wet dash, extending leftward into the end wall of a flat-roofed block.

The north gable of the house is similar to the south gable but has a long single-storey gabled wing projecting to the north, returning across the ground floor of the gable as a lean-to projecting bay, both facing into a small yard partly open to the front. The lean-to bay has a wall rendered as the main elevations, slated roof, a rectangular timber door with sidelight window, and a modern rectangular timber fixed light with top-hung vent. The single-storey wing has a front wall rendered similarly and two rectangular timber small-paned casement windows with concrete cills; a flat soffit of overhanging eaves forms the head to the windows.

Extending to the north from the single-storey wing is a gabled outbuilding of snecked basalt, partly whitened, with brick block dressings, panelled and flush timber doors, derelict windows, and a corrugated iron roof. The yard is surfaced in concrete. The inner face of the enclosing walls around the small yard on each end and along the east side are smooth cement rendered. The east side contains a corrugated asbestos roofed shelter and a rectangular timber ledged and braced door, reached by five steps, leading out to the public footpath.

The building stands set back slightly from the main road, facing onto it. The front boundary is formed by a low rendered plinth wall surmounted by original iron railings, with an original iron gate set between plain rendered piers. A gravelled front garden contains a concrete path. A gravelled area to the south contains flower beds and a detached modern garage of smooth rendered walls and slated roof, with lawns beyond. Ground level drops steeply to the rear in terraces, gravelled and hedged, reached by a flight of brick steps with modern timber handrail. An overgrown patch of ground lies to the west.

Part of the front garden and a screen wall were removed due to road widening in the 1980s. The listing extends to the house, gate, and railings.