60 Abbeyview, Muckamore, Antrim, Co Antrim, BT41 4QA

This is a late Georgian house of special architectural interest, despite alterations to the rear. The building dates from between 1760 and 1779, and appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1832.

The main house is a single-storey structure with a hipped roof, presenting a symmetrical front elevation to the south. The south-facing facade features walls rendered with a dry dashed finish using pebbles, with smooth rendered surrounds to the windows and entrance door. It is articulated by a projecting eaves course, frieze and stringcourse, and rusticated quoins at the extremities. The roof is laid with Bangor blue slates in regular courses, finished with dark grey tiles to the ridges. A cast iron gutter returns to the sides, mounted on a timber fascia over the eaves course. Three chimneys rise from the roof—one behind the main ridge and to the left, one on the right-hand gable, and one to the rear on the left-hand side. All are finished in smooth cement render with projecting caps; the central chimney retains three original pots, while the others have two modern pots each.

The windows are rectangular timber sliding sash, vertically hung, with 6-over-6 glazing and horns, featuring thin glazing bars and a dark brown varnished finish. They sit beneath projecting stone cills painted to match. The main entrance is the focal point of the south elevation, recessed within an elliptically arched opening with a looped and radial fanlight. The door itself is a later rectangular 6-panel replacement, flanked by single-pane sidelights featuring barley-sugar twist or rope-patterned pilasters. The outer pair of pilasters retains original brass bell-pulls. The door has a dark brown stained finish, and a modern tiled doorstep has been added. A low smooth rendered plinth wall runs along the front of the house, topped with short pillars and modern hooped railings, creating flower beds that rise to just below window cill level.

To the right and set back is a yard wall rendered with wet dash above a smooth plinth, finished with projecting flat concrete copings. A rectangular doorway next to the main house contains a ledged timber door in plain reveals.

The west elevation features a roof slated as the main roof but ending in a gable to the left. The walls are rendered as the front elevation with a smooth rendered projecting plinth and a cast iron gutter fitted with a circular cast iron downpipe to the right-hand side. Two windows matching those on the entrance front are present. Extending to the left-hand side is a single-storey garage with a low pitched asphalt roof, timber fascia, wet-dashed rendered walls above a smooth plinth, and a modern garage door with a two-light plain rectangular fanlight.

The rear elevation displays a hipped slated roof as the main roof, with two gabled projecting returns. Walls are rendered with wet dash. The central gabled block contains one window, a modern rectangular timber fixed light with a top-hung vent. To the right of the central gabled return is the side of the single-storey flat-roofed garage, fitted with a cast iron gutter and downpipe. A lower flat-roofed block extends to the right with a blank wet-dashed wall.

A rear doorway to the yard is segmentally arched and contains a modern segmental-headed timber sheeted door with modern metal handles. The east wall within the yard has smooth cement rendering at ground floor and roughcast above. One window, a rectangular timber fixed light with a top-hung vent, sits in plain reveals. A rectangular timber doorway holds a modern glazed flush timber door with a timber board above the head, presumably covering a fanlight. The inner walls of the yard are smooth cement rendered. A lean-to outbuilding against the front yard wall is constructed of brickwork with smooth cement render, containing two rectangular sheeted timber doors and a corrugated iron roof with PVC gutter and downpipe; it houses two store rooms. A lightweight timber outside toilet with a perspex roofed shelter stands against the rear wall.

The east elevation of the main house displays a hipped slate roof; the wall is rendered as the west elevation up to the point where the enclosing yard wall projects, beyond which wet-dashed rendering continues. Cast iron guttering with two cast iron downpipes is fitted.

Historically, the building does not have a precisely documented construction date, but it appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1832 and is recorded on Lendrick's map of 1780. By 1857, it was named Muckamore Lodge on the Ordnance Survey map. In the 1830s it was described as the residence of Francis Whittle. Contemporary sources also refer to it as "the Cottage" and mention it as the residence of Latimer Whittle Esquire, situating it within a few yards of the Six Mile Water in the townland of Muckamore, with grounds adjoining those of Muckamore Abbey. One account describes it as "small but neat looking," with confined grounds consisting merely of a lawn of trifling extent.

Previously, a terrace of three single-storey houses extended from the west side of the rear, apparently back to back with a terrace of four two-storey houses down the east side. The former terrace appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1832, and the latter by the 1857 map. All were demolished circa 1965. Following this clearance, the house was encircled by a roadway used for mill traffic until 1997, when the present owners acquired the property and enclosed and planted the rear ground as a private garden. The house was owned in the 1950s and early 1960s by Mr Grainger, owner of the adjacent mill and chairman of York Street Flax Spinning Mill. The present owners acquired it in 1963.

The building stands facing directly onto a tarmac roadway adjacent to a former industrial site. The roadway merges with hard standings all around, with an extensive concrete area opposite the house. Two-storey red brick terraces of former mill housing stand adjacent to the south-west, and red brick industrial buildings to the east and south-east. To the rear, the garden runs down to the bank of the Six Mile Water. Immediately to the west side of the house is a modern concrete brick-paved area approached by a pair of modern ironwork gates with modern rustic yellow brick piers, concrete caps and ball finials. This gateway is linked to the house by similar railings, a pier and a small segmentally arched pedestrian gate. The west boundary is formed by hedge and fence. The east boundary and the front boundary to the east of the house are formed by a high spiked steel fence which abuts a modern steel public bridge at the south-east, leading over the river.