26 New Street, Randalstown, Antrim, Co Antrim, BT41 3AF

26 New Street, Randalstown

A fine early Victorian house built around 1842 to replace a smaller building on the site. It is a two-storey, three-bay building constructed with rendered walls and retains elaborate original exterior features including decorative timber barge boards.

The main entrance faces west onto the street. The roof is laid in Bangor blue slates in regular courses with dark-toned ridge tiles. Two yellow brick chimneys with moulded details to the cornice sit one to each gable, each with two pots. The walling is replacement smooth cement render, lined and blocked, with a slightly projecting plinth and projecting coved eaves course. A gable rises over the central entrance bay with projecting eaves carried on a pair of shaped brackets; the soffits are painted wooden and panelled. The barge boards are decorative with cusped patterning incorporating pierced quatrefoils and trefoils, a design that appears to derive from Augustus Pugin's 'Ornamental Timber Gables from existing examples in England and France' (1839). Cast iron gutters and downpipes serve the entrance elevation. The central doorway is recessed in a moulded segmental arched opening with keystone. A rectangular timber 4-panel door (a modern replacement for the original) is flanked by 3-pane sidelights and surmounted by a 4-pane fanlight with octagonal panes; a cement doorstep sits below pavement level. Three windows occupy the first floor and two the ground floor, one on each side of the doorway. All windows are rectangular timber sliding sash with 6 over 6 panes and horns, set in rectangular moulded surrounds rising from projecting painted cills.

The north gable is smooth cement rendered, lined and blocked, with raised quoins at the extremities and a slightly projecting plinth. Overhanging eaves are supported on two pairs of shaped brackets with plain wooden panelled soffits. The barge boards match those on the entrance front. One window occupies the ground floor and one the first floor, both similar to the entrance elevation including surrounds but without horns to the first floor. Two small attic windows are round-headed timber sliding sash with 1 over 2 panes and short stub horns, set with projecting painted stone cills.

The rear elevation is two-storey and three-bay. The roof is laid in what appears to be Bangor blue slates in regular courses with a small area of repair work in synthetic slates; two original rooflights pierce the roof. Two yellow brick chimneys with moulded brick cornices, one to each gable, serve this elevation. The walling is rendered with a wet dash of crushed black stones. PVC gutters, downpipes and soil pipe are fitted. Three windows to the first floor are rectangular timber sliding sash with 6 over 6 panes and horns, set in exposed sash boxes with painted stone cills and plain rendered reveals. A central doorway occupies the ground floor with one window to each side. The left-hand window is similar to the first-floor windows; the right-hand window is a later rectangular metal fixed light with casement. The doorway contains a rectangular glazed timber door surmounted by a plain rectangular fanlight, with two concrete steps.

The south gable is replacement smooth cement render, lined and blocked with quoins at the extremities. Overhanging eaves feature decorative timber barge boards similar to those on the other elevations. One window occupies the ground floor and one the first floor, both sashed as previously described with horns but set in plain reveals, with projecting painted stone cills.

The building was badly damaged in a terrorist bomb explosion in 1989, which required some of the barge boards to be replaced.

The house stands within the built-up area of the town at a street corner, set back from the street with a pavement in front; one gable directly overlooks the side street. A rendered front boundary wall extends to the right from the entrance front, enclosing the rear garden. The grassy rear garden is bounded on the south by a low rendered wall with steel security fencing of a police station tight behind it; on the east side by the rendered wall of an adjacent property; and on the north side by a basalt rubble wall rendered at the end where it extends from the house. This rendered portion contains a rectangular timber sheeted door. At the other end of the wall are a pair of square brick piers with basalt rock copings (in poor condition) mounted with a pair of corrugated iron doors. On the inner face of the wall within the garden is a lean-to roofed outbuilding.