3 Maud Cottages, Cushendun, Co.Antrim

3 Maud Cottages is a modest two-storey, white-painted Arts and Crafts-style mid-terrace house, built in 1926 as part of a terrace of four dwellings to designs by the London-based architect Clough Williams-Ellis. 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 Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, close to the River Dun.

The terrace was commissioned by Ronald John McNeill (1861–1934), a prominent Ulster Unionist politician and landowner who resided at nearby Glenmona Lodge. McNeill served 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, and was created the First Baron Cushendun in 1927, a title that became extinct on his death in 1934. His former residence, Cushendun House, had been burned to the ground in 1921 as a consequence of his outspoken opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. The cottages were named after his wife, Elizabeth Maud, who had died in 1925, the year before they were built.

The authorship of the design has been a matter of some debate. While the buildings are attributed to the office of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis (1883–1978) — best known for his Italianate tourist village of Portmeirion in Wales, designed in stages between 1925 and 1975, and also responsible for Nos 1–7 The Square at Cushendun (1912) and the redesign of Glenmona Lodge (1923) — the architectural historian Rothery has suggested that the actual design was 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 (1996) describes McManus as an assistant in the firm who merely prepared the plans. The cottages have variously been described as Cornish in style (the UAHS Guide, 1972), Arts and Crafts (Rothery), and as exhibiting little that is genuinely Cornish beyond the slate-clad upper walls (Conservation Area Guide). The wall-hung slates are understood to have been inspired by McNeill's Cornish-born wife.

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

Externally, the building presents its principal elevation to the north-east, overlooking an open green and the bay beyond. The terrace is set behind painted metal railings and approached from Bay Road via a pair of square, white-washed stone entrance pillars with iron gates, leading to a gravel driveway. The overall form is rectangular. The upper storeys are clad in wall-hung slate, while the lower storey is finished in white painted render set on a plinth in a contrasting colour. The roofline is characterised by a pitched natural slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and three rendered, painted tall chimney stacks with clay pots. Half-round cast-iron guttering discharges to circular-section cast-iron downpipes.

The fenestration is notably irregular across the terrace as a whole: only the end bays at ground-floor level align with bays at first-floor level. The slate-clad upper storey has square-headed timber sliding sash windows. At ground level, the composition centres on a projecting bow containing three semicircular arched arcaded bays — with a central blind bay — flanked by further arcaded bays with casement windows to the right of the entrance door and blind bays to the left. The outer bays have timber shutters. The windows throughout are small-pane Georgian-glazed timber sliding sash windows in a cottage style, consistent across the terrace row. The central bow carries two square-headed bays to the slated upper storey. Access to the front door is via the gravel driveway; the door itself is a semicircular-headed painted panelled timber door with decorative metal furniture.

The north-west and south-east sides of No. 3 are adjoined to Nos 2 and 4 respectively. The south-west rear elevation, which overlooks a rear yard bounded by stone walling and high hedging with a small lean-to stone outbuilding, was not fully accessible at the time of survey. Where visible, the rear consists of a white painted rendered projecting central bay with a pitched slated roof, a pair of square-headed window bays to first-floor level with a single timber shutter to the left and right of the windows, and two further square-headed timber sliding sash windows to the right of the projecting bay. The rear overlooks a large open green facing the Main Street.

No. 3 was initially valued at £3 10 shillings when first assessed and remained vacant until 1930. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57) its value had risen to £12, at which point it was occupied by a Mr Sidney Heney, who remained at the address until the 1970s. Ownership of Maud Cottages passed to the National Trust in 1954. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72) the rateable value of No. 3 stood at £16 10 shillings. The terrace was listed in 1980, the same year the Cushendun Conservation Area was designated. No. 3 underwent general renovations in approximately 2011, which included the reslating of its roof and the restoration of its windows.

No. 3 has significant group value with its neighbouring properties Nos 1–4 Maud Cottages, the nearby square, and Glenmona Lodge, all associated with Williams-Ellis's work in the village. Together they represent a significant phase of early 20th-century development in Cushendun.