8 Main Street And Walling, Cushendun, Co.Antrim

A two-storey, two-bay house built around 1832–57 (architect unknown) as part of a planned development in Cushendun village. The building is rendered and painted white, with a rectangular plan and pitched slate roof. It forms one of a terrace of three similar houses (Nos. 6, 8, and 10 Main Street) that are linked at their gable ends by low white painted rendered walls with vertically sheeted timber gates providing access to rear yards. The three houses overlook the North Sea with panoramic coastal views.

The principal north-east elevation faces onto the junction of Main Road and Bay Road. It has an irregular fenestration pattern with a rough-cast rendered entrance porch on the left side containing a vertically sheeted timber door with metal furniture and a narrow multi-pane Georgian-style window. To the right of the porch are two 6/6 timber sliding sash windows on the ground floor, not aligned with the similar windows above on the first floor. The entrance porch has a pitched slate roof. All windows are small-pane Georgian-style timber sliding sashes with horns and exposed box frames painted in a contrasting colour to the white render, expressing a cottage-style character within the facade design.

The south-east side elevation, which faces neighbouring property No. 6, has a white painted smooth-rendered finish and is accessed via a rendered gateway at the south-east corner of the building. A two-storey rear return projects from this elevation, containing a small casement window at half-landing level.

The south-west rear elevation overlooks a modest concrete and grassed yard enclosed by a high timber fence to the south-east and by the elevation of neighbouring property No. 10 to the north-west. The rear elevation itself is abutted by the two-storey rear return and has an irregular fenestration pattern: two casement windows to the left of a vertically sheeted timber door on the ground floor, and a large casement window centred on the first floor level.

The north-west elevation has a white painted smooth-rendered finish with two casement windows to the right side (one on the ground floor and one smaller window on the first floor). The rear return elevation on this side is blank.

The pitched slate roof is finished with terracotta ridge tiles. Two white painted rendered chimney-stacks stand at mid-ridge, each topped with a circular terracotta clay pot and stepped cornices. The eaves are stepped with half-round cast-iron guttering discharging to circular section downpipes. The white rendered walling is set on a plinth painted in a contrasting colour.

No. 8 is the smallest of the three Main Street houses and sits between Nos. 6 and 10, positioned perpendicular to the adjacent planned square of seven white painted rendered two-storey cottage-style houses arranged around three sides of an enclosed green. The three Main Street houses were built earlier than the cottages in the Square.

The building is situated in the heart of Cushendun village, north of the Glendun River, within a Conservation Area and a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. At the time of survey, it was occupied as a private dwelling.