Bentra, 16 Ballybentragh Road, Templepatrick, Ballyclare, Co Antrim, BT39 0DE

Bentra is an early 19th-century house in vernacular Georgian style, built in 1821 by J. Linn as recorded in the incised inscription above the main entrance. It displays the proportions, plan form, and ornamental details characteristic of that era and represents a comparatively unspoiled local example, set pleasantly in a rural landscape.

The building is a two-storey, three-bay house with a single-storey gabled projection to the rear and a hipped single-storey conservatory to the west gable. The south-facing main elevation is symmetrical, with one window to each side of a central doorway.

The roof is laid in Bangor blue slates in graded courses between gable upstands, with ridge tiles. Two chimneys rise from the gables, rendered in smooth cement with splayed caps and stub pots. The walls are rendered in wet dash of crushed stones with slightly raised smooth cement rendered quoins, plinth, and stringcourses at each floor level in line with the window cills. Stone dressings frame the openings, and a projecting eaves course with smooth cement frieze marks the wall base.

Windows throughout are rectangular timber sliding sashes, vertically hung without horns, with exposed moulded sash boxes set in square surrounds and projecting painted stone cills. Those on the main elevation are 8 over 8 panes. The entrance is recessed within an elliptical arch and contains an original rectangular timber 12-panelled door—the top nine panels raised and fielded, the bottom three flush and beaded—flanked by 8-pane sidelights and a looped radial fanlight. The entrance surround features a block frame with a faceted cement keystone surmounted by a recessed stone panel bearing the inscription "Built by J. Linn AD 1821". Four composition steps with curving plinth walls terminating in short square piers approach the entrance.

The west gable is rendered as the entrance front with rendered quoins to the right-hand extremity only, lacking stringcourses except at the base of the chimney between copings. Patched render along a horizontal line suggests the track of a previous gutter. A moulded cast iron gutter with short returns and a metal downpipe serves this elevation.

The conservatory projects from the west gable with a hipped roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses with tiled ridges. Its walls are wet-dash rendered with moulded cast iron guttering all round and a metal downpipe on the west wall. The south side contains a pair of rectangular timber double doors, each 10-pane, flanked by 8-pane sidelights in plain smooth rendered reveals with projecting concrete cills and a slate flagged area in front. The west side has three windows—rectangular timber sliding sashes, 6 over 6 panes, vertically hung without horns, with exposed plain sash boxes and projecting concrete cills. The north side is similarly fenestrated.

The north elevation of the main block is roofed in slates as the entrance front. The walls are rendered overall in roughcast except for a plain vertical strip of smooth render at the left-hand extremity and a smooth rendered eaves course. Moulded cast iron guttering with a cast iron downpipe and moulded cast iron hopper services the right-hand side; a PVC soil pipe also runs down this elevation. Four windows to the right of the rear return and two to the left are all 8 over 8 panes in smooth rendered reveals with projecting stone or concrete cills, except the first window to the right, which is 6 over 6 panes.

The rear gabled return is slated and fitted with timber bargeboards. Its walls are wet-dash rendered with moulded metal gutters and a downpipe to each side. The return contains one window in each wall—rectangular timber sliding sashes of 3 over 3 panes without horns, with exposed sash boxes, plain reveals, and modern narrow concrete cills. A ledged timber door set in a moulded wooden frame stands to the left of the window in the east-side wall, with large stone flags immediately outside.

The east gable is a blank rendered wall, treated as the main entrance front with rendered quoins, plinth, and stringcourses.

The house stands at the end of a long lane in a rural agricultural setting. The main front overlooks a lawn bordered by hedges, with gravel paving immediately adjacent and extending around the west side and rear, bordered by horizontal timber fencing and a hedge. Looped and decorative iron railings and gates link the east gable to a round-pillared rendered gateway to the west, which contains a pair of decorative flat iron gates connected by a short rendered screen wall to a single-storey gabled outbuilding rendered in roughcast and slated.

The listing extends to the house, wall, gates, pillars, and railings.