Islandreagh, 2 Islandreagh Road, Dunadry, Antrim, Co Antrim, BT41 2HF

Islandreagh is a detached, three-bay, two-storey Georgian house built around 1760, situated to the north of the Belfast Road and accessed from Islandreagh Road, in the townland of Islandreagh, County Antrim. It is privately owned and remains in residential use. The house has been extended in recent years and its outbuildings converted into living and storage accommodation. Many original features have been retained and others sympathetically replaced, though the outbuildings are now fully modernised. These changes have to some degree affected the overall character and interest of the group.

The plan is rectangular. The roof is pitched and slated with overhanging eaves, and there are brick chimneys at the gable ends of the main house. The external walls are roughcast over a smooth painted plinth. Windows throughout are exposed box, six-over-six sliding sash timber with margin lights and painted masonry cills, except where noted otherwise.

The principal elevation faces south and is symmetrical. The central bay contains an entrance door surmounted by a first-floor window, with a single window at each level in the flanking bays. The door is set within a segmental-headed recess with a moulded timber segmental-headed arch on exaggerated ogee stops. The door itself is timber panelled, replaced around 1980, and has a segmented fanlight with decorative sidelights. This door replacement was featured in a publication by the Environment and Heritage Service.

To the east, the south elevation is abutted by a one-and-a-half-storey extension. At ground-floor level, where it meets the main house, there is a slated lean-to entrance porch glazed in uPVC. Above this is a half dormer containing a double six-over-six sliding sash timber window divided by a timber mullion. A single window at ground-floor level flanks the dormer to the west. A single-storey link block with a window connects this extension to the outbuilding; the outbuilding reads as gable-ended on this elevation, with a central pitched gable-ended bay containing a replacement twelve-over-twelve casement window.

The west elevation has one window at ground-floor level and two at first-floor level, the left-hand first-floor window lacking margin lights. To the north-west corner is a single-storey canted sunroom extension.

The north elevation, where exposed, contains a large timber casement window divided into panes at first-floor level. There is also a central two-storey gable-ended stairway return added around 1980. The half-landing of this staircase is lit by a round-headed arched window with a masonry cill — a prominent feature built as part of the 1980 renovation. To the west, the north elevation is abutted by the sunroom. To the east is a single-storey rear extension with an overhanging mono-pitch slated roof, containing two small square timber casement windows to the left and a modern timber panelled entrance door to the right. Further east, the one-and-a-half-storey extension has a gable-ended lucarne to the left, with windows at both ground- and first-floor level. The gable end of this extension is abutted by a pitched link block leading to the former outbuilding, now incorporated into the house. The outbuilding has square-headed openings to the west elevation; its exposed east wall section has one window at ground-floor level without margin lights, and the outbuilding itself has two square-headed window openings and a door opening.

Rainwater goods are cast iron replacement half-round gutters with round downpipes.

The setting is mature gardens, bounded along the Belfast Road by random rubble walling and along Islandreagh Road by hedging and roughcast walling. The site is accessed from each road through brick pillars with modern gates. To the rear of the house to the north is a range of outbuildings. To the west stands a multi-bay, two-storey random rubble stable building with brick detailing, original vertically sheeted timber doors at each level, and replacement exposed box timber six-over-six sliding sash windows. This is abutted to the west by an open shelter with a corrugated roof, and to the east by a two-bay single-storey byre with original sliding vertically sheeted timber doors and casement windows.

The house appears on the 1834 Ordnance Survey map, shown alongside a north-south orientated outbuilding to the east — believed by the owner to have been a milking parlour — and a small outbuilding to the north. By the time of the 1857 Ordnance Survey map the house is recorded by name as Islandreagh, the northern outbuilding had been extended to its present form, and a further outbuilding had been added to the east side of the house, believed to have served as a bottling room. By the 1921 Ordnance Survey map the house and the eastern outbuilding were shown as attached.

The Townland Valuation of 1836 records the property as owned by a Mr John Rea, listed as house, yard and offices, with the house valued at £7 18s 0d. The Griffith's Valuation of 1859 lists the immediate lessor as the Representatives of John Bates, and the occupier as Mr Robert Johnston, with the house, offices and land valued at £11 0s 0d.

A datestone reading "Islandreagh 1757" was applied to the south elevation of the former milking parlour following the renovation of the dairy outbuildings around 1985, based on research carried out by the owner and the architects responsible for the works, Escher, Wood and Ellis. That research also identified Islandreagh as the first dairy in County Antrim. The rear outbuildings housed the cows, and the bottling took place in the outbuilding block that abutted the main house. Milk was bottled at the house until the early 1970s under the label "Clark's, The Dairy, Islandreagh." W. D. Girvan describes the house as a pre-1780 farmhouse.

The current owner purchased the house in 1979. Renovation work to the main house was carried out in 1980, and the outbuildings were converted in 1985. The works were extensive and included rebuilding the rear of the house and the abutting outbuildings in concrete blocks, constructing the rear staircase annex with its round-headed double-height window, and replacing the principal door and sidelights.