Greenaghan Cottage, Glen Road, Greenaghan, Glenariff, Ballymena, Co.Antrim

Greenaghan Cottage, Glenariff, County Antrim

Greenaghan Cottage is a detached, symmetrical three-bay, single-storey-with-attic rendered farmhouse built around 1832, with a flat-roofed extension to the rear. It sits on a rectangular plan facing northwest on the southeast side of Glen Road in the townland of Greenaghan. The building is significant as a well-preserved example of a late-Georgian vernacular cottage type that is rapidly disappearing, retaining a notable collection of original external features typical of the mid-19th century.

Exterior

The roof is covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles and sandstone ashlar coping to each gable end. A rendered chimneystack with a single octagonal clay pot rises from the southwest gable. Rainwater goods are replacement uPVC. The front elevation is finished in flint dash render, the southwest side elevation in ruled-and-lined cement render, and the remaining elevations in whitewashed rough-cast lime render.

The symmetrical three-bay front elevation has a central square-headed door opening fitted with its original frame, door and fanlight. The door itself is eight-panelled timber with decoratively raised-and-fielded panels, the lower panels being flush, and retains its original brass door furniture. Above the door is a cable-moulded lintel and a tear-drop fanlight, all set within a chamfered frame. The door opens onto a small front area enclosed towards the road. The window openings throughout are square-headed and retain original timber sliding sash windows without horns (except where noted), with painted masonry sills.

The northeast gable elevation has only a pair of diminutive square-headed attic-storey window openings, fitted with a replacement timber casement to the left and a replacement steel casement to the right. The two-storey rear elevation features an off-centre flat-roofed extension. At attic level there is a single central window opening with a replacement timber casement, and to the right of the extension a further square-headed opening retaining an original 8-over-8 timber sash window with ogee horns, an exposed sash box and a flush sill. The southwest gable elevation has two diminutive attic-storey windows fitted with replacement steel casement windows.

Setting

The cottage is enclosed to the road by a low rendered plinth wall supporting embedded cast-iron railings with a matching pedestrian gate, hung on two painted stop-chamfered stone piers with capstones. The rear area is concrete paved.

History

The farmhouse was built immediately before 1832 for the O'Neill family and first recorded on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of that year, which shows the structure in its current layout along with two small outbuildings and a second, smaller dwelling to the east also occupied by the O'Neill family. Both the outbuildings and the eastern dwelling have since been demolished. The contemporary Townland Valuations of around 1834 classified Greenaghan Cottage as a 1A class dwelling — that is, a new or nearly new slated building — measuring 37.6 feet in length, 22.6 feet in depth and 13.6 feet in height. The outbuildings were constructed at the same time, and the total rateable value of the site was set at £5 and 12 shillings. In the 1830s the cottage was occupied by Daniel O'Neill, a local farmer.

The second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1857 was the first to caption the building as "Greenaghan Cottage" and showed the site unchanged in layout. Griffith's Valuation of around 1859 recorded Edmund O'Neill as occupant, with his relative — most likely his brother — Daniel O'Neill residing at the smaller house to the east. The O'Neill family leased the site from Conway Richard Dobbs (1795–1886), former Member of Parliament for Carrickfergus (1832) and High Sheriff of County Antrim (1841), who lived at Castle Dobbs near Carrickfergus and held over 5,000 acres in County Antrim. The rateable value of the cottage and outbuildings was raised to £8 and 15 shillings under Griffith's Valuation. Edmund O'Neill remained at Greenaghan Cottage until his death in 1881, when he bequeathed it by will to his son Edmund Patrick O'Neill, who purchased the site outright from the Dobbs estate around 1885. The Annual Revisions indicate that Edmund Patrick O'Neill did not live there himself but leased the cottage to Thomas Patrick Moorehead, while the O'Neill family continued to occupy the eastern dwelling. The 1901 census records Moorehead as a National School Teacher living at Greenaghan with his wife and daughter; the accompanying building return described the cottage as a second-class dwelling with nine rooms and a turf house as its sole out-office, the remaining outbuildings being recorded with the eastern dwelling. Moorehead had vacated the cottage by 1911, when the census recorded it as vacant.

Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57), the cottage was occupied by Patrick O'Neill and its rateable value had risen to £10. O'Neill remained there until his death in 1945, after which his widow Margaret O'Neill took possession. The O'Neill family continued to occupy Greenaghan Cottage at least through the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), when the site's value stood at £12.

In 1972 the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society's guide to the Glens of Antrim described the cottage as "a pretty cottage of c. 1830, single-storey with attic, whitewashed, original glazing bars intact, unusual rectangular patterned fanlight." The building was listed in 1980. The original glazing bars and fanlight remained intact at the time of the Second Survey.