Wayside Cottage, 52 Loguestown Road, Coleraine, Co. Londonderry, BT56 8PD

Wayside Cottage is a symmetrical one-and-a-half-storey, three-bay detached rendered house built in the Georgian style, constructed between 1840 and 1859 and situated on the west side of Loguestown Road south of Portrush, in the townland of Carnalridge. The listing extends to the house itself, its gates, and its pillars. Though the building has been modernised and extended to the rear, and contains some replacement fabric, the Georgian proportions of the main facade remain intact and the character of the building is largely unaffected when seen from this aspect. Early 19th-century metalwork on the site adds further historic interest.

Architectural Description

The house is rectangular on plan, with a modern two-storey extension and a two-storey longitudinal block added to the rear. The roof is pitched and covered in natural slate with blue/black angled ridge tiles, raised verges, and rendered chimneystacks to the gables, which carry tall terracotta pots. A diminutive two-paned skylight sits above the entrance door. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods run along the projecting eaves. The walls are finished in painted roughcast render with stepped raised quoins.

The windows are original 6/6 timber sash with horns, set in smooth rendered surrounds with projecting painted sills.

The principal elevation faces southeast and is arranged symmetrically around a central round-headed doorcase in the Georgian style, with one window to either side. The doorcase is reached by a single sandstone step and has a smooth rendered surround with a keyblock and pilaster jambs with impost moulding. The timber door is bolection-moulded and four-panelled, fitted with brass door furniture, and is flanked by a pilastered frame and multi-paned sidelights set on timber apron panels. Above is a spoked timber fanlight.

The southwest gable has two 4/2 windows to the attic and two diminutive window openings at ground floor level, positioned left and right. The northeast gable similarly has two 4/2 windows to the attic. The northwest (rear) elevation was only partially viewed; it is abutted at its centre by the two-storey extension, which is itself abutted at a right angle by a further modern two-storey block.

Setting

The cottage stands at the southerly point of Portrush, surrounded by farmland and set back from the road. The ground to the front and southwest is laid to lawn and enclosed by a mature hedgerow. The boundary to the road on the northeast side is formed by a painted roughcast rendered wall with saddleback coping and square corner piers with pointed caps. A square pier to the northwest supports an original wrought-iron latch gate, which opens onto a pavior path leading to the entrance door.

To the northeast there is a concrete yard open to the road, which leads through to a rear yard via square rubble-stone piers with pointed caps supporting original wrought-iron gates. Enclosing the yard to the southeast is a long range of slated, painted rubble-stone outbuildings. These have a diminutive square-headed opening and three ocular openings to the southeast elevation, a square window to the centre of the southwest gable, and a diminutive rectangular opening to the northeast gable. The northwest elevation of this range was not viewed.

Historical Background

Wayside Cottage replaced an earlier and larger dwelling that is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1830 and stood on the same site. The current cottage first appears on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of around 1860, confirming it had been built by that date. The surviving outbuilding range to the northeast also appears on that map and considerably predates the cottage itself, having been in existence by around 1860 and likely earlier.

The Townland Valuations of around 1830 record that the original dwelling and outbuildings were occupied by a William Livingston, who leased the property from John Cromie of Cromore House. The original dwelling was valued at £4 18s. and the northern outbuildings at a total of £6 18s. By the time of Griffith's Valuation in 1857, the property — then known as Carnalridge — was valued at £3 and recorded as unoccupied, with William Livingston noted as lessor, suggesting he had died shortly before the valuation was made.

By 1863 the lease had passed to the Reverend Hugh Hamill, a Presbyterian minister from Eagry in County Antrim and a relative of Livingston. Hamill died in 1864, and ownership then passed to his relative William Hamill, who did not occupy the property himself but in 1872 let the cottage to Robert J. McGregor. McGregor continued to reside there until 1924, and the property was subsequently devalued to £2 in 1872.

The 1901 Census records Robert McGregor, aged 59 and a member of the Church of Ireland, as a retired land steward who had worked the Cromie estate. He lived at Carnalridge with his wife Annie, aged 54, and their four adult children. The census building return described the house as a second-class dwelling with six rooms, and noted a number of out-offices including a stable, cow house, dairy, piggery, and fowl house, located in the surviving outbuildings to the northeast and northwest.

In 1909 ownership of the site passed to Hugh Livingston Dick, who was recorded as lessor until his death in 1936. McGregor remained at Carnalridge until 1924, when a Mr. Jackson Taggart took possession — possibly the same Jackson Taggart recorded in the 1911 Census for Ballylagan as a stonemason. Taggart was the last occupant of Carnalridge recorded in the Annual Revisions, which ended in 1929.

In 1972, the architectural historian W. D. Girvan described the cottage as "a good single-storey cottage with attics, rendered; three bays wide" and noted it possessed "Georgian glazing bars and an excellent fan-lighted doorway of elaborate proportions." Comparison between the first survey photograph of 1974 and the building's current condition confirms that these features have been retained. The dwelling had been renamed Wayside Cottage by the time of the first survey in 1973 and was listed in 1977.

Later alterations include the demolition of outbuildings formerly located to the northwest of the dwelling, which had already occurred by the time of the 1979 Ordnance Survey map. The current two-storey rear return and extension was added in the late 20th century and does not appear on the 1979 map.