2 High Street, Cushendall, Co. Antrim, BT44 0NB

No. 2 High Street is a small detached rendered house of three bays, single-storey with attic, built around 1830 on the steeply sloping southwest side of High Street in the centre of Cushendall village, County Antrim. It sits immediately adjacent to Turnly's Tower at the central crossroads of the village. The building is T-shaped on plan, facing northeast, with a gable-ended two-storey return to the rear and a further two-storey projection to the left side of that return. It is set back slightly from the street behind a low rendered boundary wall with a single wrought-iron pedestrian gate.

The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate (replacement) with corbelled eaves, black clay ridge tiles, and a rendered chimneystack with a single terracotta pot at either gable end. Rainwater goods have been replaced in steel. The main front walls are finished in painted ruled-and-lined render.

The front elevation is asymmetrical, with an off-centre square-headed door opening fitted with a replacement timber panelled door and what is likely an original spoked iron fanlight. The door is flanked on each side by a single square-headed window opening with painted masonry sills and horizontally-glazed two-over-two sliding timber sash windows with exposed sash boxes, some retaining historic glass. The southeast gable faces onto the garden of Turnly's Tower and has a pair of square-headed attic-storey window openings fitted with replacement top-hung timber casement windows. The rear elevation is abutted by the two-storey return and further projection, finished in painted rough-cast render, with square-headed door and window openings all fitted with replacement top-hung timber casement windows. The northwest elevation faces a side access lane; the left gable has a pair of square-headed attic-storey windows with replacement top-hung casements, while the right gable, belonging to the attached projection, is of painted rubblestone with a rendered chimneystack.

The building is set on a small sloping site with a paved front area enclosed by the low rendered wall and gate. A bitmac-paved laneway runs along the northwest gable, providing shared access to the rear, where there is a small garden enclosed by hedging.

Although the house has been modified to the rear and windows have been replaced in several locations, the exterior retains its historic character, most notably the surviving timber sliding sash windows to the front elevation and the spoked iron fanlight above the door.

The history of the building is closely tied to the development of Cushendall as a planned village. The majority of buildings along High Street were erected in the first half of the 19th century by the landowning Turnly family. Francis Turnly, the village's proprietor, had travelled to China in 1796 and accumulated a fortune of around £75,000. In 1801 he used this wealth to purchase the Newtownglens estate from the Richardson family for £24,000 and subsequently renamed the settlement Cushendall. At the time of purchase the village consisted of little more than a cluster of modest cabins, a mill, and a bridge. Turnly — described by the architectural historian C. E. B. Brett as an eccentric character who "effected extraordinary improvements in buildings and roads on his property" — developed the settlement into a coastal resort, with hotels and numerous commercial properties erected to serve the growing number of tourists passing through on the way to the Giant's Causeway.

No. 2 High Street may date from as early as the Townland Valuations of 1834, though the loss of the accompanying town plan for Cushendall makes it impossible to identify the building with certainty in that source. It is first recorded with confidence on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1857 and in Griffith's Valuation of 1859, which recorded it as valued at £9 and 15 shillings and leased to a Mrs Anne McDonnell from the Turnly estate. Anne McDonnell continued to live at the address until her death in 1877, when the property passed to her nephew Charles McDonnell. Charles did not reside there himself, and the house was let to a succession of tenants over the following three decades. The Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1903 shows the building in its current layout, with the rear return and outbuilding already in place, indicating that no major structural alterations have been made since at least the early 20th century. The property was recorded as vacant from around 1903 until the 1930s.

Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the house was occupied by a Mr Andy Close, who operated a shop from the premises, which was valued at £7. The property continued to change hands frequently throughout the 20th century, and by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) it appears to have been used solely as shop premises, with a total rateable value of £11 and 10 shillings.

In 1972 the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society described High Street as "an outstandingly attractive street, of quite exceptional merit and character, climbing very steeply indeed from the crossing of the main street to Court McMartin, almost every building in it of individual merit apart from the value of the group as a whole; the roofs, gables, doors and windows rise in an irregular staircase up the hillside." The buildings along High Street were included in the Cushendall Conservation Area in 1975 — only the second conservation area to be designated in the province, a status described at the time as "testimony itself to the special qualities of the village." In that same year Cushendall was chosen as one of Northern Ireland's four pilot schemes for conservation during the European Architectural Heritage Year. No. 2 High Street makes a valuable contribution to this conservation area, with its setting remaining authentic within the historic town centre.