96 Ballybracken Road, Doagh, Ballyclare, Co Antrim, BT39 0TE

A much altered early nineteenth-century house at Loonburn, near Doagh. Though it retains its original external architectural form, it now has little architectural character remaining.

The building is a two-storey, three-bay house with rendered walls and a slated gabled roof. The main entrance faces north. The north elevation is symmetrical, with one window to each side of a central doorway. The walls are rendered with wet dash of crushed stones and feature a projecting smooth rendered plinth, with slightly projecting vertical smooth rendered end strips. The roof is laid in Bangor blue slates in regular courses with a ridge tile; two rendered chimneys sit one on each gable, fitted with modern pots. Modern PVC guttering runs along the timber eaves board, with a PVC downpipe at the right-hand side returning around the corner to the west gable.

Windows throughout are rectangular PVC fixed lights with top-hung vents and double glazing with pseudo-small panes, set in smooth rendered reveals with slightly raised smooth rendered surrounds and projecting concrete cills. The main entrance is a modern rectangular PVC door, panelled and incorporating a semi-circular radial glazed panel, set in a PVC frame surmounted by a rectangular fanlight double glazed with pseudo-small panes in five divisions, imitating an original six-pane fanlight.

The east gable is a blank wall rendered with a scratch coat of cement and a slightly raised vertical border to the right-hand extremity, with a slight overhang to flush verges. Projecting from this gable is a setback single-storey outbuilding with fieldstone walls and a corrugated iron roof. This contains one small rectangular timber sliding sash window of 1 over 1 with horns, with a plastered timber lintel and recessed cill positioned close to the house, and another similar opening with blocks containing a small ledged timber door.

The rear elevation is of similar character to the entrance front, with similar roof and wall treatment, PVC guttering with a downpipe to the left-hand side. Windows here are similar to the entrance front except the glazing bars imitate 2 over 2 panes. Three windows occupy each floor, with a doorway between the second and third windows to the right, comprising a glazed flush timber door with a modern handle set in a slightly raised smooth rendered surround and concrete doorstep.

The west gable is a blank wall rendered as the main elevation, with a PVC downpipe to the left-hand side returning from the entrance elevation and a PVC soil pipe.

The house stands in a very rural setting, facing the main road but set well back within its own grounds comprising farm grazing fields. It is approached by a concrete lane bordered by hedges, with the field immediately in front enclosed by stone and sod walls. Alongside and to the rear are single-storey outbuildings of rubble stone and rendered construction, roofed in corrugated iron and slate, of no special architectural interest. A small fence-enclosed area immediately in front of the house has a gravel surface bordered by a rockery, accessed through a gateway with rendered circular piers crowned with smooth conical caps, containing a pair of modern slatted timber gates.

The precise date of construction is not known, but the house appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1833.