39 High Street, Antrim, BT41 4AX

This is a terraced house of probably early 19th-century date, standing at the corner of High Street and Bridge Street. Although it has undergone external and internal alterations, it retains architectural and historic interest and forms a group value with the two adjoining buildings.

The building is three storeys high with a single bay and gabled front elevation facing north. The ground floor has been converted to retail use, with the house entrance facing west. The north elevation is pitched with a roof of Bangor blue slates laid in regular courses. Window openings are rectangular; the second-floor window contains a modern timber fixed light with top-hung vents, whilst the first-floor window is currently blocked up. The ground floor is rendered to match the upper floors and contains a modern shop front of timber-framed construction with two panes of glazing, extending around the left-hand side with similar glazing to form one side of a recessed open porch. The shop window slightly oversails a terrazzo base. The porch has terrazzo flooring, timber-slated left-hand side, and a similar timber ceiling. The doorway contains a timber-framed door now boarded over, surmounted by a rectangular fanlight. Above the porch and shop window is a tongued and grooved timber-sheeted fascia set on an angled plane.

The west elevation comprises a blind three-storey gable, with a three-storey, three-bay block extending to the right. This block has a slated roof and a polychrome brick chimney. The upper floors contain rectangular timber sliding sash windows without horns—9 over 9, 6 over 6, and 6 over 1—though some sashes are missing. The ground floor has a blocked-up window on each side of a blocked-up doorway. The doorway itself features a semi-circular arch with panelled pilasters and a panelled surround to the fanlight, which has a patera and ornamented keystone with radial glazing bars. Two granite steps lead up to it.

The rear elevation is occupied by the gable of an adjoining block on Bridge Street. The east face of the rear return is one bay and four storeys, rendered in smooth cement. The ground-floor doorway has a derelict timber frame and small fanlight, with metal sheeting closing it. Above are two rectangular timber sliding sash windows without horns, set in exposed sash boxes with broken glazing—the lower 6 over 3, the upper 6 over 6. Above these is a two-pane fixed light in timber. Cast iron guttering and downpipes run down the wall. Abutting the gable of the rear return is a block facing Bridge Street, with its rear elevation facing east. This section has smooth rendered walls and cast iron rainwater goods, with a projecting two-storey bay in timber-clad framing on a smooth rendered plinth, currently in poor condition.

The building stands at the end of a terrace of shops and houses facing the main street, occupying a corner position with Bridge Street. To the Bridge Street side is a modern three-storey infill block of poor quality. The rear setting is degraded by inappropriate and unsympathetic architectural elements out of character with the original building. A building appears on this site on the Ordnance Survey map of 1832. The property is within a conservation area.