'Aborfield', 25 Charles Street, Ballymoney, Co. Antrim, BT53 6DX

'Arborfield', 25 Charles Street, is a two-storey plus attic semi-detached suburban house built in 1908, designed by architect James Scott of Belfast in a restrained Edwardian Freestyle manner. It forms a matching pair with its neighbour, No. 27 ('Dunvaron'), and together they represent well-preserved and relatively scarce examples of this type in the area. The listing extends to the house itself, the single-storey rear return, boundary walling, gates, and gate piers.

LOCATION AND SETTING

The property sits on the north-east side of Charles Street, Ballymoney, roughly 0.3 kilometres north of the town centre. To the front is a garden and tarmac drive and forecourt, enclosed by a brick wall with square brick piers topped with stone caps, and a gateway fitted with decorative wrought-iron gates. To the rear is a large yard with a freestanding garage to the north-east and a large back garden beyond. The character of the setting is reinforced by the neighbouring Technical School of 1905–06, a contemporaneous listed building executed in a similarly Free Edwardian manner, which complements the pair of houses.

EXTERIOR

The house is of asymmetric plan, consisting essentially of a roughly square two-storey main block with a single-storey entrance porch to the east side, and shallow full-height gabled bays to both the front (south) and rear. The front bay incorporates a further single-storey canted bay at ground floor level. To the north-east there is a single-storey L-shaped outhouse projection, and to the north, spanning between this property and its neighbour, is a small single-storey lean-to projection. Abutting this to the north is a large, later single-storey double garage and outbuilding extension, which is of no architectural interest.

The main block has an overhanging gabled roof — T-shaped in structure — covered in natural Welsh slate with clay ridge tiles, plain moulded bargeboards on brackets, and two brick chimneystacks (one shared with the neighbour), with pronounced corbelling and clay pots. Gabled dormers appear to the front, east side, and rear. The kitchen projection has a hipped roof in the same materials. The canted bay has a shallow hipped roof covered in lead sheeting; the porch has a similar roof, though this does not appear to be original.

Ground floor walls are finished in red brick; the upper floor is rendered in pebbledash with cement render quoins and lugged and heeled surrounds to the front and west-facing windows. Most window openings are segmental-headed, with those to the canted bay, dormers, and some ground floor rear openings being flat-headed. Most windows are filled with plain one-over-one timber sash frames. The two larger windows to the front and upper floor rear, the west side of the porch, and the dormers are fitted with mullioned and transomed frames featuring Art Nouveau style glazing to the upper panes. The cills appear to be sandstone, though currently painted. The rainwater goods appear to be largely replacement uPVC.

SOUTH (FRONT) ELEVATION

To the far right, the side of the porch features a timber door with Art Nouveau style glazing over a shelf feature on brackets, with three tall vertical panels below. The entrance opening has a sandstone keystone. The full-height bay to the right half of the main block contains four windows to the canted bay, a pair of windows at first floor level (with replacement frames), and a roundel window at attic level. To the left of the bay is a large ground floor window and a similar but smaller one directly above at first floor level; the former has a narrow sandstone keystone matching that at the entrance. A brick mullion with a sandstone coping separates this house from its neighbour.

EAST ELEVATION

There is a window to the left of the porch, one to the porch itself, and two to the right. One window sits at first floor level, directly above the porch.

NORTH (REAR) ELEVATION

The ground floor level was largely obscured from view during inspection. The L-shaped projection occupies the far left, with part of the shared lean-to to the right, which merges with the large outbuilding addition. Three windows of various sizes appear at first floor level — the leftmost with a replacement frame — with a further window at upper landing level to the left.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Nos. 25 and 27 Charles Street were built in 1907–08 on a previously undeveloped site at what was then practically the northern edge of Ballymoney, with only a scattering of largely institutional buildings — most notably the Union Workhouse — further to the north-west. Their construction closely followed the completion of the neighbouring Technical School in 1905–06, and marked the beginning of the gradual suburbanisation of this end of Charles Street as it approached the Coleraine Road.

On 27 February 1908, the Ballymoney Free Press and Northern Counties Advertiser reported that the 'semi-detached villas…now nearing completion' were being built for a Mr. Robert Holmes and a Mr. William J. Beattie. Valuation book annotations of 1909 confirm that Beattie came to occupy No. 25, and Holmes No. 27. Both houses were erected on part of a plot previously held from the Antrim Estate by a John Henry. The present owners of No. 27 have stated that Robert Holmes — who was a commercial traveller for local chemists and grocers Baxter's Limited (a company in which Beattie served as Secretary) — was responsible for building the pair, intending to keep No. 27 for himself and sell No. 25. However, the available evidence suggests that both Holmes and Beattie built the properties jointly. The architect was James Scott of Belfast and the contractor was William Currie of Coleraine.

In the 1911 census, William James Beattie (described as a book-keeper, aged 41) is recorded at No. 25 with his wife Sarah Ann, their two young children, his parents Samuel and Maude, and a domestic servant, Sarah McIntyre. W. J. Beattie died suddenly while visiting Glasgow in late 1937.

In 1967 the property was acquired by Norman Holmes (then resident next door at No. 27) and his brother-in-law, Sir Arthur Algeo, and donated to Ballymoney Reformed Presbyterian Church for use as a manse. It was subsequently occupied by the Reverend Hugh J. Blair, Minister of the Ballymoney Reformed Presbyterian Church from 1953 to 1993. The property remains in the ownership of the church, though it is currently leased to a tenant.

The earliest map on which Nos. 25–27 appear — dating from 1931 — shows a smaller outbuilding on the site of the present one. The freestanding garage is also shown on this map, though the present structure may be a later replacement.