The Steeple, Steeple Road, Antrim, Co Antrim, BT41 1BJ

The Steeple is an early 19th century classical house built in 1827 for George Clarke, architect unknown. It is thought to replace an earlier house recorded on late 18th century maps on the same site. The name derives from the ancient Irish Round Tower standing close by in the grounds. The building was bought in 1927 by the Fawcett family and subsequently acquired around 1956 by Antrim Rural District Council. It now serves as offices. It lies within the area of an ancient monument in State Care (ANT50:9).

OVERALL FORM AND ROOF

The house is two storeys with shallow bowed projections either side of the main entrance on the west front. The hipped roof is covered in Bangor blue slates laid in regular courses with wide overhanging eaves; the soffit is flat and moulded. Cast iron gutters are moulded throughout. There are two chimneys, smooth cement rendered with plain projecting cornices: the north stack carries five original octagonal-section earthenware pots, the south stack three, all original.

WEST (ENTRANCE) ELEVATION

The west elevation is symmetrical and five windows wide, with the central entrance set within a rectangular porch. The walls are smooth cement rendered, lined and blocked, with a projecting plinth, a moulded string course at first floor level, and a plain projecting platband at first floor cill level with slight projections for the cills. Above, there is a moulded frieze with a dentil cornice.

Windows to the first floor are rectangular timber vertically hung sliding sashes, six over six panes without horns. Ground floor windows are one over one with horns and have moulded surrounds with projecting stone cills carried on pairs of moulded brackets, set in plain reveals to the first floor.

The entrance porch is a rectangular open structure with a flat roof. It is designed in the distyle in antis arrangement, meaning it has two unfluted Doric columns set between the projecting side walls of the porch rather than standing fully proud. The entablature is moulded with a dentil cornice that returns along the sides. The projecting cornice and blocking course are dressed in lead and painted white to match the porch walls. The side walls of the porch carry recessed panels between Doric pilasters and each contains one rectangular metal fixed-light window, a single pane with narrow margin lights of blue and red tinted glass, with moulded surrounds and projecting moulded cills carried on small brackets carved with acanthus ornament. A small circular-section cast iron downpipe sits in the angle between the north side of the porch and the main wall.

Four sandstone steps lead up to the porch, flanked by a pair of projecting painted sandstone plinths. The bottom step has a cement repair. The porch floor is laid with modern tiles considered appropriate. The inner walls of the porch are smooth rendered and painted, with surrounds and brackets matching those on the outer face. The plastered and painted ceiling has a dentil cornice and a central plaster rose of moulded acanthus leaves; a globular white glass light shade hangs from it.

The doorway itself comprises a rectangular timber door, glazed and panelled in three panels, with a modern brass handle and finger plate. It is flanked by large single-pane sidelights set between fluted timber pilasters with a moulded entablature, all recessed within an elliptical archway with a double roll-moulded surround. There is a wide single-pane arched fanlight above. The wooden panels below the sidelights are moulded to give the appearance of brickwork with recessed joints. A circular bronze bell pull is mounted in the extreme right-hand pilaster.

NORTH ELEVATION

The north elevation is two storeys with a basement to the rear, and is six windows wide to the first floor. The hipped slated roof continues with wide overhanging eaves and a plain soffit. The cast iron gutter has a PVC downpipe to the right-hand side, and there is a cast iron soil pipe. The walls are rendered as the entrance front, with a projecting plinth but without the string courses, frieze, or cornice of the entrance front. There is a projecting pilaster at each extremity: the left-hand one is plain, and the right-hand one has mouldings returning from the front elevation.

Windows on the ground and first floors are sliding sashes as described on the entrance front's first floor — six over six without horns, with plain reveals and plain projecting cills — except for the two at the left end, which are in narrower openings and are four over four panes. Similar narrow windows to the ground floor are largely concealed behind a rectangular projecting block rising from the basement. This projecting block has a hipped slated roof and similar rendered walls, with a moulded cast iron gutter on a projecting timber eaves board supported on pairs of small shaped brackets, and a cast iron downpipe to the east side.

In the basement, the main wall contains a rectangular doorway and two windows. The door is a modern flush timber door with a plain rectangular fanlight. The window to its right is a pair of coupled rectangular timber sliding sashes, each six over six with horns. The window further right is a modern rectangular timber fixed light with a side-hung casement and top-hung vent. The east and west sides of the projecting block each have one window, sashed six over six without horns, similar to the other ground and first floor windows.

The west end of the basement well contains two chambers with segmental brick vaults; the left-hand vault is roughly cement rendered. The internal walls of these chambers are smooth cement rendered, and the exterior wall is rendered, lined, and blocked. The left-hand chamber has a rectangular timber doorway with a wooden frame but the door is missing; the right-hand chamber is open-fronted. The basement well has a concrete surface, and the retaining wall is smooth rendered, lined, and blocked.

EAST ELEVATION

The east elevation has a similar roof, eaves, and walling to the north elevation, and comprises two storeys over a basement with a three-quarter height rectangular rear projection. Two chimneys sit equidistantly on the ridge, rendered as the others, with four original pots on the southern stack and five on the northern. Moulded cast iron gutters with cast iron downpipes serve this elevation.

The main wall to the right of the rear projection has two windows on each floor — rectangular timber sliding sashes, six over six without horns, on the ground and first floors — one similar window in the basement, and a pair of similar windows coupled to the right of it. The left-hand ground floor window has iron bars affixed.

The main wall to the left of the rear projection has one six over six sashed window on the ground floor, and to its left a later rectangular flush timber door giving onto a flat concrete canopy projecting from the building, fitted with tubular steel K-clamp type railings. There are two similar six over six sashed windows at basement storey level.

The rear projection has a hipped slated roof with smooth rendered, lined, and blocked walls, and a moulded cast iron gutter on overhanging eaves. The north side of the rear projection has one rectangular timber window to the basement, sashed one over one with horns. The east side has two small rectangular timber four-pane horizontally pivoted windows at basement level, with plain reveals and projecting cills. The south side of the rear projection has a rectangular timber window to the first floor, sashed one over one with horns; a pair of rectangular coupled windows to the ground floor, also sashed one over one with horns; and a rectangular flush timber door with a plain fanlight at basement level.

SOUTH ELEVATION

The south elevation of the main block is two storeys, symmetrical, and five windows wide. The hipped slated roof continues with overhanging eaves on a deep soffit as on the entrance front. Walling is rendered as the entrance front, with a moulded string course at first floor level, a frieze and dentil cornice, and pilasters at each extremity. The windows on each floor match those on the entrance front, with similar moulded surrounds and carved bracket cills to the ground floor.

SETTING

The house stands well back from the main road within extensive grounds, positioned on a slight eminence overlooking parkland to the front. This parkland contains groups of mature trees and an early Christian period Irish Round Tower. The public park is now separated from the house and its immediate grounds by a concrete post and wire mesh fence. The immediate grounds consist of lawns with shrubs, a tarmac parking area to the front and north side, and a tarmac path along the south side.

To the east (rear) stand a number of rubble stone one and two-storey outbuildings with slated roofs, though many of their original wall openings have been altered and they are considered to be of no special architectural interest. A group of prefabricated single-storey buildings stands to the north-east. To the north stands a single-storey gabled building with basalt rubble walls and a corrugated iron roof, formerly a pavilion, and now of no architectural interest.

The house is approached from the rear by a wide tarmac driveway that separates it from the stone outbuildings. The west side of the driveway to the rear of the house is bounded by a concrete post and tubular steel fence. The remainder of the driveway from the entrance gateway is bounded on the west side by a rubble stone and roughly coursed stone wall with basalt rock copings, containing small gateways to the garden and parkland. The northern gateway to the garden comprises a pair of squared greystone piers with a looped iron barred gate and concrete capstones. The gateway to the parkland further south comprises a pair of short octagonal stone piers with ogee stone caps, though its gate is now missing. Adjacent to this are modern steel-framed wire mesh gates at an intermediate point on the rear driveway.

At the entrance to the rear driveway off the main road stands a single-storey gatelodge with rendered walls, a hipped slated roof, and red brick chimneys, considered to be of no architectural interest or merit.

The front boundary wall along the main road is formed by a basalt rubble wall, re-aligned in the 1980s. Near the southern end of this boundary wall is the repositioned gateway to the front driveway, made up of low rendered curving screen walls with square piers ornamented with a Greek key frieze; there are no gates. Along the front driveway stands a single-storey caretaker's house with rendered walls and a hipped slated roof, built in the 1980s. The original front gatelodge was demolished and the main front gateway moved closer to the house in the 1980s when the new line of Steeple Road was created, at which time the new caretaker's cottage was also built near the old Round Tower.