7 High St., Cushendall, Co.Antrim

7 High Street is a terraced, single-bay, three-storey rendered house built around 1830, situated on the north side of High Street in Cushendall village, County Antrim. It stands between No. 5 High Street to the southeast and No. 9 High Street to the northwest, directly opposite the Curfew Tower at the central crossroads of the village. It forms an integral part of a continuous terrace that steps up the steep gradient of High Street, and has group value with the adjoining No. 9.

The building is L-shaped on plan, facing southwest, with a full-height rear return. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, cast-iron guttering on drive-through iron brackets, and a rendered eaves course. The chimney stack to the southeast gable is a replacement in brick with terracotta pots. Walls are painted render with painted rusticated render quoins to the right-hand side only. Window openings are square-headed with painted concrete sills and replacement horizontally-glazed two-over-two sliding sash timber windows with ogee horns and exposed sash boxes; the rear has replacement top-hung timber casement windows. The single-bay front elevation has a square-headed door opening to the left, fitted with a replacement sheeted timber door with a glazed panel, opening onto a raised concrete platform with three concrete steps shared with the adjoining No. 9. The northwest side abuts No. 9 High Street, and the southeast side abuts No. 5 High Street, which sits at a lower level; the exposed gable above that adjacent roofline is blank. To the rear, there is a full-height gabled return, a lean-to two-storey extension filling the re-entrant angle with a cat-slide roof, and a flat-roofed porch with a hardwood door. The small paved front area is enclosed by a rendered wall with rubble coping, and there is a small rear yard enclosed by tall concrete and brick walls.

The building has a rich documentary history. Most properties along High Street were erected in the first half of the 19th century by the Turnly family, the local landowners. Francis Turnly, Cushendall's proprietor, had travelled to China in 1796 and accumulated a fortune of around £75,000. In 1801 he used this money to purchase the Newtownglens estate from the Richardson family for £24,000, subsequently renaming the settlement Cushendall. Described by architectural historian C. E. B. Brett as an eccentric character who "effected extraordinary improvements in buildings and roads on his property," Turnly developed what had been little more than a handful of cabins, a mill and a bridge into a coastal resort, constructing hotels — including the Glens of Antrim on Shore Street — and numerous commercial properties to serve the growing number of tourists travelling to the Giant's Causeway.

Nos. 7 and 9 High Street were originally built as a single property around 1830, appearing on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832. Griffith's Valuation of 1859 records the combined property as valued at £18 and 5 shillings and operating as a local hotel for travellers along the coastal road; it was leased by Daniel Jamison, a local rate collector resident at Nos. 13–15 High Street, to a Ms. Jane Martin. The hotel continued in use until around 1866, when it was converted to a private dwelling and occupied by a Mr. John McDonnell. By around 1884 the property had passed to a Mr. Alexander McAuley, but by 1886 it was described as "going to ruin" and its rateable value had fallen to £8 and 10 shillings. The Annual Revisions indicate that only part of the building was in occupation between the 1880s and 1922, when it was restored and converted into a bakery by Messrs Thomas Crowley and Charles McLernon. The subdivision into its current form as two separate three-storey single-bay dwellings took place during the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland between 1936 and 1957; at that time No. 7 was recorded as the bakery, valued at £22 and operated by the McLernon family. In 1948 the building ceased to function as a bakery and was occupied as a private dwelling by a Ms. Mary McAlister, who subsequently purchased the site outright from the Turnly estate in the 1950s. She later leased the property to tenants; the Second General Revaluation of 1956–72 set the total rateable value of No. 7 at £14 and 10 shillings.

In 1972 the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society described High Street as "an outstandingly attractive street, of quite exceptional merit and character," with "the roofs, gables, doors and windows rising in an irregular staircase up the hillside," and noted Nos. 7 and 9 specifically as "a fine three-storey pair, probably of about 1800." The buildings along High Street were included in the Cushendall Conservation Area in 1975 — only the second conservation area to be designated in Northern Ireland, a distinction described as "testimony itself to the special qualities of the village." That same year Cushendall was chosen as one of Northern Ireland's four pilot schemes for conservation during the European Architectural Heritage Year. No. 7 High Street was listed in 1976, and records note that the building underwent renovation around 1980.