360 Ballyclare Road, Ballyclare, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim, BT36 4TQ

A detached five-bay single-storey direct-entry vernacular house, built around 1800, located on the south side of Ballyclare Road in Newtownabbey, approximately 3 miles north-east of Mallusk, County Antrim. The building is of local interest as a surviving example of an increasingly rare vernacular dwelling type.

The house is rectangular on plan, facing west. It has a pitched corrugated metal roof (replacing the original thatch) with a metal ridge cap and red brick chimneystack positioned on the ridge of the north gable and to the party wall between the right and extended bay. The walling is painted smooth-render over a chamfered plinth, bowed in to the eaves. The west elevation features an off-centre entrance door (a square-headed replacement timber panel) with two windows to the left and one window to the right, plus one window serving the extended fifth bay to the right. The windows on the front elevation are square-headed timber half-sliding sash with horns, featuring painted smooth-rendered reveals and sills. The north gable is blank. The east elevation is painted roughcast without plinth and is lit by six windows, which are replacement timber casements or top-hung fittings. The extended bay has flaking render exposing painted red brick walling. The south gable is abutted by a shed.

Attached to the south gable is a two-bay single-storey shed with pitched natural slate roof and painted rubble stone walling, partially cement rendered. The shed's east gable has one timber casement, the south gable is blank, and the west elevation has one cast-iron hopper head (missing downpipe and gutter), square-headed painted timber sheeted doors at each end with two casements between. The house has replacement half-round metal gutters.

The building and its ancillary structures are set perpendicular to the road within a gravel forecourt fronting a modern house, with a detached modern concrete shed located to the west of the older shed.

The house retains historic sliding sash windows to the front and preserves its historic plan form and interior features including original joinery, demonstrating authenticity despite the loss of its original thatch and other alterations.

Historically, the building is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832, alongside a smaller building to the west. The second edition of 1902 shows the complex had been further developed with two smaller buildings located to the south-west and north-west of the adjacent building. The property is absent from the first valuation of Carnmoney parish in 1836, suggesting it was a modest vernacular dwelling below the valuation threshold. The second valuation of 1859 records a house, offices and land, with the house described as a long range and thatched dwelling. It was then occupied by John Strahan (or Straghan), who leased it from Dorothea Turnley at a rateable value of £2-15-0 (later revised to £3 before 1862). Mary E. Strahan occupied the property in 1880, followed by another John Strahan in 1883. The 1901 census records John Straghan, a 44-year-old farmer, living here with his wife Mary Anne, their young son and daughter, a niece, his brother Andrew, and farm hand Henry Kavanagh. The house was recorded as a second-class thatched dwelling with 3 rooms in use. John Strahan acquired the freehold of the property in 1928 and appears to have lived here until at least 1937, with the property remaining in family possession until at least 1972.