2 Maud Cottages, Cushendun, Co.Antrim

2 Maud Cottages is a modest two-storey, white-painted Arts and Crafts-style mid-terrace house, built in 1926 as one of a row of four dwellings (Nos 1–4 Maud Cottages) to designs by the London-based architect Clough Williams-Ellis (1883–1978). It stands on the former site of a coastguard station — built in the mid-19th century but lying in ruins by the 1920s — in the heart of the village of Cushendun, County Antrim, within a designated Conservation Area and an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, close to the River Dun.

ORIGINS AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The cottages were commissioned by Ronald John McNeill (1861–1934), a prominent local landowner and outspoken Ulster Unionist politician, who resided nearby at Glenmona Lodge. McNeill held several significant political offices, including Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1922–25), Financial Secretary to the Treasury (1925–27), and twice served as British Representative to the League of Nations — signing the Kellogg-Briand Pact on behalf of the British Government in August 1928. He was created the First Baron Cushendun in 1927, a title that became extinct on his death in 1934. Glenmona Lodge was burned to the ground in 1922 in response to his outspoken opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The cottages were named after his wife Elizabeth Maud, who had died in 1925, and were built the following year, in 1926, as recorded in the Dictionary of Irish Architects and confirmed by original plans.

Williams-Ellis had previously worked for McNeill on Nos 1–7 The Square in Cushendun in 1912 and on the redesign of Glenmona Lodge in 1923–24. He is best known for his Italianate tourist village of Portmeirion in Wales, designed in stages between 1925 and 1975, and in Ireland also designed the First Church of Christ (Scientist) in Belfast, erected in 1936–37. Some sources, notably Rothery, suggest the cottages were not personally designed by Williams-Ellis but were the work of Frederick McManus (1903–85), a young Irish architect employed in Williams-Ellis's London office in 1925–26. The Cushendun Conservation Area Guide of 1996 describes McManus as an assistant in the firm who prepared the plans. Stylistically, the 1972 UAHS Guide for the Glens of Antrim described the cottages as Cornish in character — a reference both to the wall-hung slate and to the design of the nearby Square — though Rothery classified them as Arts and Crafts, and the Conservation Area Guide noted that aside from the slate-clad walls, "there is little else that is Cornish about them." The wall-hung slate is understood to have been inspired by McNeill's Cornish-born wife.

The village of Cushendun itself developed from the early 19th century, when the Napoleonic Wars cut off travel to mainland Europe and Ireland became a popular destination for British tourists. The construction of the coastal road between 1832 and 1842 opened up the previously isolated Glens of Antrim, transforming villages such as Cushendun into seaside resorts, with a number of substantial summer houses and bathing lodges built along the coast by city-based professionals and merchants.

No. 2 was initially valued at £3 and 10 shillings in the Annual Revisions and recorded as vacant until 1930. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) its value had risen to £12, and it was occupied by a Mrs Conlon, who remained at the address until at least the 1970s. Ownership of the cottages passed to the National Trust in 1954. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the total rateable value of No. 2 stood at £16 and 10 shillings. The terrace was listed in 1980, the same year the Cushendun Conservation Area was designated. No. 2 underwent a general renovation in approximately 2011, which included the reslating of its roof and the restoration of its windows.

EXTERIOR

No. 2 forms part of a rectangular-plan terrace of four houses with a distinctive two-material façade treatment: the lower storey is finished in white-painted render set on a plinth painted in a contrasting colour, while the upper storeys are entirely clad in wall-hung slates. The pitched slate roof is finished with terracotta ridge tiles and carries three tall rendered and painted chimney stacks with clay pots.

The principal elevation faces north-east onto an open green overlooking the bay. The overall fenestration pattern across the terrace row is deliberately irregular: only the end bays at ground-floor level align with bays at first-floor level. The ground floor is arranged as a series of semicircular arched arcaded bays with casement windows to the left of the entrance door and blind bays to the right, along with a single square-headed timber sliding sash window to the end bay. A central projecting bow features three semicircular arched bays at ground-floor level, of which the central one is blind, with two square-headed bays to the slate-hung upper storey above. The outer bays are fitted with timber shutters. First-floor windows throughout the slate-hung section are square-headed timber sliding sash windows with small Georgian-style panes, expressing a cottage character consistent with the design of the terrace as a whole. Rainwater is collected by half-round cast-iron guttering discharging to circular-section cast-iron downpipes.

The entrance is approached via a gravel driveway from Bay Road, passing through a pair of square white-washed stone entrance pillars with iron gates and painted metal railings. The door itself is a semicircular-headed painted panelled timber door with decorative metal door furniture.

The north-west and south-east sides of No. 2 are adjoined to the neighbouring properties, Nos 1 and 3. The south-west rear elevation overlooks a rear yard containing a small lean-to stone outbuilding, bounded by stone walling and high hedging. The rear yard was not accessible at the time of survey, but where visible the rear elevation consists of a white-painted rendered projecting central bay with a slated pitched roof, carrying a pair of square-headed window bays to first-floor level with a single timber shutter to both the left and right side of the windows; to the left of the projecting bay are two further square-headed timber sliding sash windows. The rear overlooks a large open green facing the Main Street.

MATERIALS

Roof: natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles. Rainwater goods: painted cast iron. Walling: white-painted render to lower storey; slate-hung to upper storeys. Windows: timber sliding sash.

SETTING AND GROUP VALUE

The house sits within a terrace row of four white-painted rendered Arts and Crafts-style two-storey houses set behind painted metal railings and a gravel driveway, overlooking a bounding green and the bay beyond. The terrace is accessed from the northernmost end immediately off Bay Road. No. 2 has significant group value with its neighbouring properties in the terrace (Nos 1–4 Maud Cottages), the nearby Square, and Glenmona Lodge, all of which were also designed by Clough Williams-Ellis. Together they represent a significant and coherent phase of planned development in the village during the early 20th century. The property is located within the Cushendun Conservation Area and within a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

The listing covers the house, outbuilding, yard walling, and railings.