Ballycushan House, 20 Old Ballyclare Road, Templepatrick, Co Antrim, BT39 0BJ

Ballycushan House is a detached symmetrical three-bay two-storey rendered house built around 1900, situated on the north side of Old Ballyclare Road in Templepatrick, facing south. The house stands on its own grounds and is notable for its unusual external features, though it is not considered a particularly good example of its type.

The building displays a symmetrical facade with distinctive architectural elements. An octagonal lantern crowns the structure, whilst three full-height bays project forward, with the central bay surmounted by a decorative curvilinear gable. A two-storey return extends to the rear. The roof is of M-profile pitched natural slate with clay ridge tiles. Decorative timber bargeboards with finials sit above paired gables on both side elevations. Original cast-iron ogee-moulded guttering and square-profile downpipes survive.

The walling is cement rendered with a plinth course and rusticated render quoins to the front elevation only. A running moulded string course above ground floor level extends across the front and both side elevations. Window openings are segmental-headed to the first floor and square-headed to the ground floor, fitted with concrete sills and replacement hardwood casement windows. The central entrance bay contains a segmental-headed front door opening with blind spandrel panels, a timber door frame with sidelights above panels, and a tripartite overlight with a timber panelled door. The door opens onto a stone platform and three stone steps leading to a front gravel area within a large front lawn.

Two tall walls bound the rear elevation: to the east a redbrick wall laid in English garden wall bond, and to the west a tall rubble stone wall with concrete coping. Both feature arched openings lined in redbrick providing access to the rear yard.

The grounds contain several outbuildings of archaeological and historical interest. A five-bay two-storey rubble stone building dating from around 1650 stands to the rear, now roofless and ruined. This early house retains large projecting chimneys at both gable ends and some surviving timber joinery including sash windows, architraves, panelled shutters and panelled doors. A further multi-bay two-storey stone outbuilding dating from around 1700 also stands nearby, constructed of coursed rubble stone with large squared quoins and a pitched corrugated iron roof. Its square-headed window and door openings have voussoired stone lintels and jamb stones, with later timber doors and windows.

Historical records indicate that a group of buildings appeared on the 1833 Ordnance Survey map, comprising the current rear structure with smaller buildings to the north and west. The 1857 map shows the same group marked as a Threshing Mill with an enlarged structure to the west and a mill pond on the site. The OS Memoirs of the late 1830s record both a flax mill and a corn mill at Ballycushan. By 1859, Griffiths Valuation records the occupier as Mrs Jane Wiley and the lessor as Lord Templeton, valuing the house, offices and land at £15. The Valuation Revisions from 1864 to 1929 record the property continuously in Wiley family ownership. In 1894, the erection of a new house is documented at a cost of £100, with the entire group valued at £179. A note from this period records that the old house was then used as a store. The current house first appears on the 1904 Ordnance Survey map and is recorded as Ballycushan House on the 1932 map.