5 The Square, Cushendun, Co.Antrim

5 & 6 The Square, Cushendun, County Antrim

These two former dwellings form part of a remarkable and cohesive group of seven white-painted, two-storey Edwardian houses arranged around three sides of an enclosed green in the heart of Cushendun village. Originally built in 1912 as two separate homes, numbers 5 and 6 have since been internally converted into a single dwelling. They were designed by the London-based architect Clough Williams-Ellis (1883–1978), best known for creating the Italianate village of Portmeirion in Wales, and commissioned by Ronald John McNeill (1861–1934), a prominent Ulster Unionist politician and landowner. McNeill requested that Williams-Ellis design the houses in a Cornish cottage style in honour of his Cornish-born wife, Elizabeth Maud.

Architectural Character and Exterior

The building presents as a pair of modest two-storey, three-bay white painted rendered houses — together forming part of a nine-bay block — with rendered quoins to the right side, all set on a plinth painted in a contrasting colour. The style is Edwardian Cornish cottage in character, and the overall composition is deliberately picturesque. The principal elevation faces north-east onto the enclosed green and is accessed via a paved footpath from the main entrance pillars.

The facades feature small-pane Georgian-style casement windows, one of which retains painted timber shutters in a contrasting colour, though the left-hand shutter is currently missing. The fenestration pattern on the principal elevation is irregular: the ground floor has six bays consisting of two doorways divided by square-headed casement windows, and these bays are not aligned with the slated dormer windows on the first floor above.

The roof is a steeply pitching slated mansard, with the lower slope punctured by dormer windows set at a steeper angle than the upper slope. There is a concrete ridge. Two tall painted rendered chimney-stacks rise at mid-ridge, each with black painted clay pots and stepped cornices; the right-hand chimney-stack has been rebuilt. Deep overhanging eaves have exposed painted rafter tails that project beyond the face of the wall. Rainwater is collected by half-round cast-iron guttering discharging into circular-section cast-iron downpipes.

The principal entrance is a painted panelled timber door set within a plain painted timber architrave surround, approached from the main entrance gates via a paved stone pathway on the side of the elevation. The left-hand front door is currently disused, though the building retains both original entrance doors.

The south-east elevation is adjoined to the neighbouring property, No. 4 The Square. The south-west rear elevation features a small casement window to the left side and two double casement windows flanking a triple casement window to the right; the slated dormers at first floor level here are aligned with the ground floor bays below. This elevation overlooks a small rear garden, which is accessible from a rendered arched gateway at the west corner of the building. A high timber-boarded fence separates the property from the neighbouring No. 4. The north-west side elevation overlooks the rear yard of the adjacent No. 7 The Square and consists of a small casement window to the left side and a single doorway to the right, with a painted panelled timber door aligned with a single slated dormer window above.

The seven houses of The Square are linked at their corners by rendered arches containing painted timber gates, and the entire group is enclosed behind a white painted rendered and stone boundary wall. The square is entered from the Main Street through a pair of circular painted rendered pillars bearing iron gates. An oval slate set into the central gable of the nine-bay block is inscribed with the date 1912 and the initials RMcN and MMcN, for Ronald and Maud McNeill.

Materials: natural slate roof; painted cast-iron rainwater goods; white rendered walling; timber small-pane Georgian-style windows.

Interior

The interior layout has been significantly altered as a result of the conversion of the two original dwellings into a single property. One of the original staircases has been removed, and the building now has a single staircase leading to the first floor rooms within the mansard roof. Although two entrance doors are retained, only one is currently in use. These alterations were noted in heritage records as having occurred prior to 1987. Around 2011 the building underwent a general renovation that included the reslating of the roof and the restoration of the windows.

Historical Context

The Square at Cushendun represents a deliberate and self-conscious departure from the vernacular building traditions of Ulster, conceived by its patron as a Cornish-style village-within-a-village. It sits within a broader phase of development at Cushendun shaped by Ronald John McNeill, who later became the First (and only) Baron Cushendun in 1927, a title that became extinct upon his death in 1934.

McNeill was a prominent figure in Ulster Unionist politics, serving as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1922–25), Financial Secretary to the Treasury (1925–27), and twice as British Representative to the League of Nations. He signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact on behalf of the British Government in August 1928. His principal residence, Glenmona Lodge, was burned to the ground in 1922 in retaliation for his outspoken opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

Cushendun itself had developed from an isolated settlement into a popular seaside resort following the construction of the Antrim Coast Road between 1832 and 1842, which opened up the Glens of Antrim to British tourists — particularly after travel across mainland Europe was curtailed by the Napoleonic Wars.

Williams-Ellis was responsible not only for The Square but also for the nearby Maud Cottages and the redesign of Glenmona Lodge in 1923–24, as well as the First Church of Christ (Scientist) in Belfast, erected in 1936–37. The Square was first recorded on the Ordnance Survey town plan of 1922.

Original occupants of numbers 5 and 6 are recorded in the valuation records: No. 6 was initially valued at £4 and occupied by a Mr. Daniel Laverty, while the smaller No. 5 was valued at £2 and 10 shillings and first occupied by a Mrs. Leevy. By the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), No. 6 was occupied by a Ms. Cassie O'Connor at a revised value of £6, and No. 5 by a Ms. Elizabeth Cochrane at £5. Ownership of all seven houses passed to the National Trust in 1954. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), No. 6 was occupied by Mary O'Connor (valued at £11) and No. 5 by a Mr. J. Robertson (valued at £8 and 5 shillings).

Nos. 1–7 The Square were listed in 1980, the same year the buildings were included in the Cushendun Conservation Area.

Setting and Group Value

The building has strong group value with the other properties on The Square (the wider group includes Nos. 1–7), as well as with the nearby Maud Cottages and Glenmona Lodge, all designed by Clough Williams-Ellis. The Square is positioned in the heart of Cushendun village, within a designated Conservation Area, in close proximity to the River Dun, and within a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.