7 The Square, Main Street, Cushendun, Co.Antrim

No. 7 The Square, Cushendun, County Antrim

No. 7 The Square is a modest two-storey, four-bay house built in 1912 to designs by Clough Williams-Ellis (1883–1978), a London-based architect best known for Portmeirion, the Italianate tourist village in Wales which he designed in stages between 1925 and 1975. The house was commissioned by Ronald John McNeill (1861–1934), a prominent local landowner and Ulster Unionist politician, who requested that Williams-Ellis design the properties in a Cornish cottage style as a gesture to his Cornish-born wife, Elizabeth Maud (d. 1925).

The house forms part of a planned group of seven two-storey dwellings — Nos. 1–7 The Square — arranged around three sides of an enclosed green in the heart of Cushendun village. The group comprises three blocks: a pair of two-storey four-bay blocks on the south-east and north-west sides of the square (Nos. 1 and 7), built as sizeable individual dwellings, and a two-storey nine-bay building between them containing five smaller dwellings (Nos. 2–6). The blocks are linked at their corners by rendered arches containing painted timber gates, and the whole ensemble sits behind a white painted rendered and stone boundary wall. 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).

The building is Edwardian in style, rectangular in plan, with white painted rendered walling, rendered quoins at each corner, and a plinth painted in a contrasting colour. The steeply pitched slated mansard roof has dormer windows on its lower slope set at a steeper angle than the upper slope, with a concrete ridge. Two tall painted rendered chimney-stacks rise at mid-ridge, each with black painted clay pots and stepped cornices; the left-hand chimney-stack has been rebuilt. The deep overhanging eaves have exposed painted rafter tails which project beyond the face of the wall. Rainwater is collected in half-round cast-iron guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes.

The windows are small-pane Georgian-style timber casements fitted with timber shutters painted in a contrasting colour, contributing strongly to the distinctive cottage character of the design.

The principal elevation faces south-east onto the enclosed green and is reached via a paved footpath from the main entrance pillars. It has a regular fenestration pattern of four bays on the ground floor, each aligned with a slated dormer on the floor above. The front door is set off-centre within the elevation, with small multi-pane upper lights and painted metal door furniture, all set within a plain painted timber architrave surround.

The north-east elevation faces onto Main Street and consists of a single bay on both ground and first-floor levels. At ground-floor level a three-sided canted bay window projects outward into the eaves above, aligned with a slated dormer window on the first floor.

The north-west elevation adjoins No. 6 Main Street. Where it is visible from the rear yard of No. 6, it shows one casement window at ground-floor level and a single dormer window above within the mansard roof.

The south-west side elevation overlooks a yard accessed through a rendered arch gateway at the west corner of the building. This yard is modest, finished in concrete and grass, and enclosed by a high white rendered wall to the right containing a timber entrance gate, and a low painted rendered wall with a timber fence above to the left. The fenestration of this elevation is irregular: a single painted panelled door is set off-centre; to its left is a double casement window, and to its right is a smaller square window; above, a slated dormer is centred on the mansard roof.

Historical background

Ronald John McNeill, who commissioned The Square, was an outspoken Ulster Unionist who campaigned vigorously against Home Rule and served as a Unionist Member of Parliament. He held several important political offices, including Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1922–25) and 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. His residence of Glenmona Lodge in Cushendun was burned to the ground in 1922 as a result of his outspoken opposition to the Anglo-Irish Treaty. He was created the First Baron Cushendun in 1927, but the title became extinct on his death in 1934.

Williams-Ellis was also responsible for the design of the Maud Cottages nearby, the redesign of Glenmona Lodge in 1923–24, and the First Church of Christ Scientist in Belfast, erected in 1936–37 and stylistically related to The Square. The buildings at The Square were first depicted on the Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1922 in their current layout.

Cushendun itself had developed from the early 19th century, when the disruption of travel to mainland Europe caused by the Napoleonic Wars made Ireland an increasingly popular destination for British tourists. The previously isolated Glens of Antrim became accessible with the construction of the Antrim Coastal Road between 1832 and 1842, transforming villages such as Cushendun into popular seaside resorts. A number of summer houses and bathing lodges were subsequently built along the coast by city-based professionals and merchants.

Occupancy and ownership

No. 7 The Square was initially valued at £10 when first assessed. The first recorded tenant was a Ms. Lizzie Besant, who remained at the property until 1937, when the house passed to the McCleary family, who stayed until the 1960s. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the rateable value was increased to £17, and ownership passed to the National Trust in 1954. Following the death of John McCleary, a retired seaman, in 1962, the property was occupied by a Mr. Michael McNeill. By the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), the total rateable value stood at £20.

Nos. 1–7 The Square were listed in 1980, the same year in which the buildings were included in the Cushendun Conservation Area, designated to protect and enhance the special qualities of the village. A general renovation of No. 7 took place around 2011, which included the re-slating of the roof and the restoration of its windows.

The property sits within a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, close to the River Dun, and has significant group value with its six neighbouring properties on The Square, as well as the nearby Maud Cottages and Glenmona Lodge, all designed by Williams-Ellis. Together they represent a significant and distinctive phase of planned development in Cushendun during the early 20th century and a deliberate break from the usual vernacular building traditions of Ulster. The listing covers the house, its boundary walling, and its gate.