21 Mill Street, Cushendall, Co.Antrim

21 Mill Street, Cushendall, is a mid-19th century symmetrical terraced townhouse of three bays and three storeys, rendered and facing south-east onto the north-west side of Mill Street. Built before 1857 — and possibly as early as the Townland Valuations of 1834, though this cannot be confirmed with certainty — it was originally constructed as two separate dwellings, with a ground-floor shop occupying the northernmost bay. It forms part of a continuous terrace sharing a common roofline, and sits within the Cushendall Conservation Area.

The building is rectangular on plan and currently divided into two units. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, and there are rendered chimneystacks with clay pots at either end. The chimneys are notably large and rectangular in character. Modern rooflights have been added to the front pitch, and two wall-head dormers sit on the rear pitch. Cast-iron guttering on iron drive-through brackets and cast-iron downpipes serve the front elevation, while plastic rainwater goods have been used to the rear.

The front walling is finished in painted ruled-and-lined render, with rusticated render quoins at both ends picked out in a contrasting colour. The rear is finished in pebbledash render. Window openings are square-headed with painted masonry sills. To the front, replacement timber sliding sash windows with ogee horns and exposed sash boxes are fitted with two-over-two panes, horizontally split; these largely define the building's character. To the rear, windows have been replaced in uPVC. The symmetrical front elevation has a central square-headed door opening fitted with a replacement timber panelled door, and simple wrought-iron sill guards to the first floor only. The south-west side abuts the adjoining No. 23 Mill Street, and the north-east side abuts No. 19 Mill Street.

The rear elevation repeats the three-bay, three-storey arrangement, with the two wall-head dormers and a uPVC conservatory wing added at ground-floor level. To the rear there is a small concrete-paved yard enclosed by tall roughcast rendered walling painted white. On the north-east boundary, adjacent to No. 19 Mill Street, there is a single-storey outbuilding also finished in roughcast render, with a duo-pitched natural slate roof and a sheeted timber door, all painted.

Despite the loss of the original shopfront — removed in around 1993 — and rear alterations that sit uneasily with the building's 19th-century character, the front elevation remains well proportioned with an orderly arrangement of windows. The internal plan form is retained.

The historical background of the building is closely tied to the development of Cushendall itself. The majority of the two- and three-storey buildings along the north-west side of Mill Street were erected in the first half of the 19th century by the landowning Turnly family. Francis Turnly, the proprietor of Cushendall, had travelled to China in 1796 where he amassed a fortune of around £75,000. In 1801 he used this money to purchase the estate of Newtownglens from the Richardson family for £24,000, subsequently renaming the settlement Cushendall. At the time of purchase the village consisted of little more than a number of insignificant cabins, a mill and a bridge; however, as tourist traffic through the area increased — visitors travelling to the Giant's Causeway — the village was developed into a coastal resort with hotels, such as the Glens of Antrim on Shore Street, and numerous commercial properties. Turnly has been described as an eccentric character who effected extraordinary improvements in buildings and roads on his property.

No. 21 Mill Street was first recorded with certainty on the second-edition Ordnance Survey map of 1857 and in Griffith's Valuation of 1859, which set the total rateable value at £11 and 15 shillings. At that time the two dwellings were leased by the McDonnell family of Kilmore House to Margaret Kenny and a Mr James Campbell. Ownership briefly passed to a Mr Robert Hugh Orr in 1880, before Joseph McCollum, a local publican residing at No. 23 Mill Street, purchased the building outright in 1888. Occupants changed frequently between the 1860s and the turn of the 20th century. The Census of Ireland records that in both 1901 and 1911 Archibald McCambridge occupied part of the building and operated a grocer's shop from the ground-floor unit, while Elizabeth Harvey occupied the remainder and ran a lodging house. The 1911 census building return described the property as a pair of second-class dwellings comprising six inhabited rooms, with a fowl house and shed as the only outbuildings.

By the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), ownership had passed to a Ms Grace McAuley, and the total rateable value had risen to £13 and 5 shillings. Under the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), William Blaney, a retired gardener, was recorded as owner; the rateable value was substantially increased to £40 and 10 shillings, and the building was noted as continuing to be subdivided into two dwellings and a ground-floor shop unit.

In 1972, the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society's guide to the Glens of Antrim described Nos 9–23 Mill Street as "a long terrace of three-storey rendered houses with quoins, all with similar proportions and detailing, but most rather dreary … the shops in the terrace have simple fascias." Mill Street as a whole was described in the same guide as "an outstandingly good street by Ulster standards; there is almost nothing to jar the eye … this street demands, and deserves, the most careful and sensitive consideration of any change of any kind." The buildings along Mill Street were included in the Cushendall Conservation Area in 1975, only the second conservation area in the province to be designated at that time, and the village was selected as one of Northern Ireland's four pilot schemes for conservation during the European Architectural Heritage Year. No. 21 Mill Street was subsequently listed in 1976.

Around 1993 the building underwent extensive renovation, including re-slating of the roof in Bangor Blue slates, installation of new cast-iron rainwater goods, conversion of the interior into living accommodation, and removal of the original shopfront. At the time of the second survey the building remained subdivided into two units.

As one of the more substantial houses on Mill Street in the centre of the village, No. 21 forms an important component of the intact terrace and contributes significantly to the overall historic appearance of the Cushendall Conservation Area.