1 Maud Cottages, Cushendun, Co.Antrim

No. 1 Maud Cottages is the northern-most house in a terrace of four two-storey Arts and Crafts-style dwellings built in 1926, sitting on the former site of a mid-19th century coastguard station that had fallen to ruin by the 1920s. The terrace was commissioned by Ronald John McNeill (1861–1934), a prominent Ulster Unionist landowner and politician who resided nearby at Glenmona Lodge, and was named in memory of his wife Elizabeth Maud, who had died in 1925. The buildings were designed by the London office of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis (1883–1978), the architect best known for the Italianate tourist village of Portmeirion in Wales, though some sources suggest the working drawings were prepared by Frederick McManus (1903–85), a young Irish architect employed in Williams-Ellis's office during 1925–26. Williams-Ellis had previously worked in Cushendun on Nos 1–7 The Square (built 1912) and the redesign of Glenmona Lodge (1923–24).

The terrace is white painted rendered throughout, with slate-hung upper storeys and white rendered lower storeys sitting on a painted plinth in a contrasting colour. The pitched slate roof carries terracotta ridge tiles and three tall rendered and painted chimney stacks with clay pots. Half-round cast-iron guttering discharges to circular-section cast-iron downpipes. The overall character of the design has been variously described as Cornish in style — a reference attributed to McNeill's Cornish-born wife, whose influence is seen particularly in the wall-hung slates — and as Arts and Crafts, while the 1996 Cushendun Conservation Area Guide noted that beyond the slate cladding there is little else that is specifically Cornish about the cottages.

No. 1 occupies the northern end of the terrace, set perpendicular to Bay Road. Its principal elevation faces north-east onto an open green overlooking the bay. Access is from Bay Road through a pair of square white-washed stone entrance pillars with iron gates, leading along a gravel driveway to the front door: a semicircular-headed painted panelled timber door with decorative metal door furniture. To the left of the door is a single recessed blind bay; to the right is a single square-headed window with painted timber shutters. The lower storey features recessed arcading and a central bow, with small-pane Georgian-style timber sliding sash windows; the outer bays have timber shutters. The slate-hung upper storey has square-headed timber sliding sash windows. The fenestration pattern across the terrace is deliberately irregular — only the end bays at ground floor level align with bays on the first floor. The south-east side adjoins No. 2 Maud Cottages. The south-west rear elevation overlooks a rear yard containing a small lean-to stone outbuilding bounded by a high stone wall and hedge; the rear yard was not accessible at the time of survey, but where visible the rear elevation shows two square-headed window bays to the slated upper storey, overlooking a large open green facing Main Street. The north-west gable-end carries a projecting white painted rendered chimney stack with a recessed stone plaque inscribed with the name 'Maud Cottages', and a single square-headed timber sliding sash window to either side of the stack.

The listing extends to the house, outbuilding, walling, entrance piers, gates and railings.

McNeill was an outspoken opponent of Irish Home Rule and served as a Unionist Member of Parliament, holding office as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1922–25) and Financial Secretary to the Treasury (1925–27), and twice serving as British Representative to the League of Nations; he signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact on behalf of the British Government in August 1928. His residence at Glenmona Lodge was burned to the ground in 1922 as a direct result of his opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. He was created the First Baron Cushendun in 1927, though the title became extinct on his death in 1934.

The first recorded tenant of No. 1 was a Ms. Margaret McMullan, who was listed as occupant until 1930, with the property initially valued at £3 and 10 shillings. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) the house was occupied by a Ms. Maggie Cochrane and revalued at £11. The Patton family took possession in 1946 and remained until the 1970s. Ownership of Maud Cottages passed to the National Trust in 1954, and by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the value of No. 1 stood at £16 and 10 shillings. The terrace was listed in 1980, the same year it was included within the Cushendun Conservation Area. No. 1 underwent general renovation in around 2011, including the reslating of the roof and the restoration of its windows.

The house has considerable group value as part of the terrace of Nos 1–4 Maud Cottages, and in relation to the nearby square (Nos 1–7 The Square) and Glenmona Lodge, all designed by Clough Williams-Ellis, together forming a significant and coherent phase of early 20th century development in the village. Cushendun itself lies within a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, alongside the River Dun, and the village developed as a seaside resort following the construction of the Antrim Coastal Road between 1832 and 1842, which opened up the previously isolated Glens of Antrim to tourists during a period when travel across mainland Europe had been disrupted by the Napoleonic Wars.