2 Steeple Road, Antrim, Co Antrim BT41 1AF

2 Steeple Road, Antrim is a good example of a 19th-century building that retains most of its exterior and interior features.

The house is a two-storey gabled structure with rendered walls and a slated roof, accompanied by a lower gable-roofed addition at one end. The main entrance faces south-east. The entrance elevation of the main house is five windows wide. The roof is laid in Bangor blue slates in regular courses with black ridge tiles. Three chimneys are present: one on each gable and one at an intermediate position on the ridge. The gable chimneys are smoothly cement-rendered with projecting rendered brick cornices. The central chimney is rendered with a wet dash of crushed stones and has a projecting concrete coping. Modern pots have been added to the chimneys: four to the left, one to the central chimney, and two to the right. Cast iron guttering, now overgrown with creeper, features cast iron downpipes and trefoil iron brackets. The walling is roughcast with a light sprinkling of small crushed black stones.

Windows throughout are rectangular timber sliding sashes, vertically hung, with 2 over 2 pane divisions and horizontal pane divisions with horns, set in exposed sash boxes with smooth rendered and painted flush-set surrounds and projecting stone cills. The main entrance is a rectangular timber four-panel door with an ornamental bronze knocker and handle, set in a moulded wooden surround, topped by a rectangular fanlight containing arcaded metal glazing bars. The left-hand gable is rendered as the front elevation but has been largely re-rendered with a wet dash of crushed stones. The verges to the roof are essentially flush with only a very small overhang of slates.

The rear elevation has a roof slated as the front with one small original two-pane rooflight near the right-hand end. Cast iron guttering and downpipes serve the main block and additional block, with PVC guttering to the rear return. Downpipes of the rear return and additional block discharge into plastic barrels. The rear wall of the main block features a symmetrical arrangement of two windows on each side of a stair window, with one window to each floor. All are sashed as previously described except the stair window, which has margin lights. The rear wall of the rear return has a rectangular ledged timber door with an old latch, set in plain reveals. The side wall of the rear return facing away from the gable has two windows, one to each floor, similar to those on the gable end. One corner of the rear return projects upward to form a flat-topped base for a water tank, topped with a corrugated roof and PVC gutter.

The rear wall of the additional lower block is in continuous plane with the main block and has similar walling. The rear wall of the rear return is similar to the gable. The rear wall of the additional block has three rectangular doorways: one to the upper level and two to the ground floor. The ground floor has a ledged timber door to the left of a wider opening containing a pair of double ledged doors, both set in plain reveals with a timber lintel. The upper level has a half-door type, ledged, now damaged, set in plain reveals. A rendered screen wall of single-storey height extends to the left of the additional block, containing a ledged timber door leading to the front garden. The gables of the main block above the lower block and the gable of the lower block are both smoothly cement-rendered.

To the rear is a yard of tarmac in poor condition with a range of outbuildings arranged around three sides. A large gabled and slated barn with rendered walls contains three rectangular openings along one side, with vertical timber boarding to the upper part of one gable and red brick to the other gable. It has PVC guttering. A lower gabled and slated block with rendered walls has two rectangular ledged timber doors and features PVC guttering, cast iron downpipe, and a red brick gable. A lower single-storey shed closes the end of the yard, with a slated roof, rendered walls, rectangular timber small-pane fixed light windows, a ledged timber door, and horizontal boarding. Projecting from the large outbuilding is a rendered wall with a humped top terminating in a pair of circular piers, rendered with wet dash and conical caps, mounted with a wide flat iron gate with scrolled finials. The large outbuilding has a later steel-framed greenhouse added to its gable. The rear wall of the large outbuilding is of brick with small brick-head-sized ventilating openings and a rectangular ledged timber door. The rear wall of the lower outbuilding is of red brick with a similar door. The smallest outbuilding has red brick and basalt rubble gables and a basalt rubble rear wall, with a slated roof.

The building stands facing the main road, set back slightly with a small garden in front. The front boundary is formed by a hedge with a small pedestrian gateway opposite the main entrance. A concrete path leads from the gateway to the house, descending two steps from pavement level. The small gateway has short square stone piers with chamfered corners and ogee-shaped caps, painted white, with a small ironwork gate. The front hedge terminates at each end in a pair of circular gate piers of rendered rubble with conical caps. The gateway to the left contains an original flat iron gate; the pair of piers to the right are linked by a rendered wall. Extending right from the right end pier is a long low basalt rubble wall with an overgrown side garden behind it. Extending left from the left end pier is a short rendered wall with basalt rock copings, abutting the roughly coursed basalt rubble boundary wall of the adjacent property. Projecting forward from the left-hand end of the house is a rendered wall with rounded rendered coping, linking with the vehicular gateway.

The precise date of the building is not known, but a building appears on the site on the first Ordnance Survey map of 1832. It is presumed that it was originally a single-storey farmhouse later given a second storey around the mid-19th century. The building was previously known as York Lodge. The outbuildings do not appear until the Ordnance Survey map of 1902.