Edenmore Care Home, 646 Shore Road, Whiteabbey, Co Antrim, BT37 0PR

Edenmore Care Home – Former Building (Now Demolished)

This building has been demolished and modern apartments have been constructed on the site. The following description records the demolished structure.

A large asymmetrical two-storey Italianate house built around 1850, located east of Shore Road in Whiteabbey. The house latterly served as a nursing home and was recorded as Grade D1 (Record Only).

The main block was square on plan with a projecting right bay to the south and a full-height bowed bay to the east. The building comprised a two-storey L-shaped return to the west with a single-storey addition to the rear. A single-storey extension dating to around 1890, which housed the entrance porch, projected from the return and part of the main block. This extension was embellished with a campanile tower. A modern flat-roofed addition dating to around 1970 extended further to the west.

The roof was hipped natural slate with a central valley to the main block; ridges and hips were leaded. Eight large rendered chimneystacks with cornice-caps and discs featured on the main house. The return had a taller two-stage chimneystack with decorative circular vents, a double cornice and a round-headed aperture to the shaft, topped with an ornate wrought-iron finial. The campanile tower had a leaded pyramidal roof. The single-storey extension included a pitched glazed lantern which lit a former ballroom.

Overhanging eaves throughout carried large plain modillions (possibly iron) set to a moulded frieze, supporting ogee cast-iron guttering with a regular lion's head embossed motif and cast-iron downpipes. Plastic rainwater goods served the tower.

The walls were painted rendered with ruled-and-lined finish, rusticated stucco quoins throughout and a tall moulded plinth course. The extension featured a decorative balustraded parapet resting on a plain frieze and deep moulded cornice, which extended around the main block as a moulded string course between floors. The extension was further embellished with rendered pilasters flanking all openings and blind roundels.

Window openings were generally segmental-headed at first floor and square-headed at ground floor with moulded stucco architraves. The first floor featured 6/6 timber sash windows without horns, with keystones and moulded corbelled sills. Ground floor windows were 1/1 horned sashes with continuous moulded sill course having corbels and apron panels beneath openings. The extension had round-headed 1/1 horned sashes with architrave surrounds and moulded sill courses between pilasters. Windows to the bowed bays had corresponding bowed sashes. Some windows to the right of the principal entrance had been replaced by fixed-pane timber-framed windows. The tower featured three round-headed timber casement windows to all sides, each flanked by engaged Doric columns on plinth bases and supporting an architrave and panelled frieze.

The principal elevation faced south-southeast. The main block presented a projecting right bay; the central and left bays were fronted by the entrance extension. The right bay had a window at each floor, while the central bay featured a double window at first floor. The extension accommodated the recessed principal entrance to the right of centre, with a bow containing a triple window to its right and a double window to its left. To the extended left side was a further bow with a triple window, and a narrow timber entrance door in a round-headed recess to the extreme left. The principal entrance was round-headed with a moulded architrave and an original door-case comprising double oak doors with decorative panels, a dentilled timber lintel cornice with a carved crest and a plain glazed fanlight. The door opened onto a tiled platform accessed by three tiled steps. The campanile tower displayed two visible stages, with round-headed windows to the higher stage and a square-headed window in a decorative stucco surround to the lower stage.

The east (garden) elevation was symmetrical, arranged with a window at each floor on either side of the central full-height bow. The north elevation of the main block was abutted by a modern single-storey prefabricated addition. The exposed ground floor (left) had two 2/2 horizontally divided sashes; the first floor had three 6/6 windows, and the right side had two blind round-headed niches at mid-level and a number of small modern openings. The west elevation of the main block was almost entirely abutted by the return and a modern brick outshot to first floor centre; an exposed first floor window on the right matched those elsewhere. The return was largely abutted at ground floor by the extension to the south, the addition and outbuilding to the north, and a slightly lower former service range to the west. The exposed first floor featured a number of square 1/1 sash windows with plain stucco surrounds and moulded sills, detailed similarly to the addition.

The house was fronted by a bitumac parking area. An attached courtyard of original outbuildings to the northwest featured pitched natural slate roofs, rendered chimneystacks and rendered walling. A curvilinear gable marked the end of the south service range where it met the west range, which also had a defined north gable rising above a later range of outbuildings. An additional range of outbuildings dating to around 1940 extended considerably in a northwest direction.

The building first appears on the Second Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1857. Griffith's Valuation of 1859 records the property as a 'house, offices, gate lodge and land', occupied by James Torens and leased from William J.B. Lyons. The building was valued at £146. The former grounds have since been developed with several housing estates.