Fernville, 57 Old Manse Road, Jordanstown, Co Antrim, BT37 0RX

Fernville is a detached three-bay one-and-a-half-storey house built around 1860 in the Picturesque style, located on the north side of Old Manse Road in Jordanstown. The building stands within a mature garden setting, accessed via a pair of timber gates supported on square rendered piers, and retains much of its original character and architectural detailing.

The house is rectangular on plan with a single-storey return to the north-west and a two-storey return to the north-east, each abutted by further single-storey outbuildings. The roofs are pitched and tiled with fretted timber bargeboards and finials, together with replacement clay ridge tiles. Rendered chimneys are topped with original decorative clay pots. The walls are rendered over a moulded plinth, with square-headed timber-framed 1/1 sliding sash windows featuring moulded chamfered surrounds.

The principal elevation faces south. The central bay contains a timber fretted gabled porch with a round-arched opening; above the timber wainscoting to the cheeks are Gothic stained glass windows. The original timber-panelled entrance door has top glazed panels and is accessed by sandstone steps. Single windows occupy the left and right bays at ground floor, each surmounted by a substantial label canopy intricately detailed with cornice and circle motifs. The central bay is topped by a gabled wall-head dormer containing a replacement square-headed uPVC window in a Gothic opening with moulded spandrel.

The west gable comprises a single-storey projecting bay containing three windows at ground floor, with further windows to each cheek, all surmounted by a moulded parapet and railing. A single Gothic opening at first floor contains a timber-framed square-headed glazed opening at the centre, surmounted by a stained glass panel and flanked by sidelights with timber aprons below. The elevation is abutted on the left by a single-storey return containing a pair of windows separated by a chamfered surround, and further abutted at left by a lower return with a painted plinth containing a single 2/2 sliding sash window and a wall supporting square pillars to an enclosed yard.

The north elevation is abutted on the right by returns and a further flat-roofed extension containing a square-headed timber sheeted door and a rectangular window. To the left, a two-storey return contains a single window to the right at first floor, and a further single-storey return contains a square-headed vertically timber sheeted door with a window to the left, alongside a modern timber shed.

The east elevation is gabled to the left, detailed as the west. The return to the right is abutted by a recent uPVC conservatory at ground floor, surmounted by a single replacement uPVC casement window to the left at first floor. This is further abutted to the right by a single-storey return containing a square-headed garage door to the left and a single timber casement window with a dormer above to the right, with a modern garage abutting further to the right.

The house first appears in the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1902, marked as Fernville. The site is shown as vacant in the first (1833) and second (1857) edition maps. The earliest primary source reference dates from the Valuation Revision Fieldbook of the 1870s, where the property is valued at £33 and occupied by Mrs Grainger. A revised entry in 1885 records the occupier as William Grainger. Prior to this decade the surrounding area was for the most part vacant, although the land from the river upwards began to develop during the 1860s.