5 Crevolea Road, Blackhill, Coleraine, BT51 4ES

A detached two-storey rendered late Georgian house built around 1810, extended to the south and rear around 1975. The building is recorded under the name 'Blackhill House' and predates the first Ordnance Survey map of 1831-2. It was formerly a licensed premises and public house.

The house is T-shaped on plan, facing east onto Crevolea Road with a yard and outbuildings to the north. It has a pitched natural slate roof with roll-moulded terracotta ridge tiles, rendered chimneystacks and timber fascia to gable ends. Cast-iron guttering on steel brackets runs to the rendered eaves course, with cast-iron downpipes. The external walls are painted rendered throughout.

The front elevation is six windows wide with square-headed window openings having painted masonry sills and replacement 6/6 timber sash windows with exposed sash boxes. An off-centre flat-roofed canted entrance porch has round-headed window and door openings with replacement glazing, a panelled door and fanlight. The door opens onto large slate flagstones into the front gravel area. The gabled south side elevation features a door opening with glazed French doors. Multi-pane timber casement windows are found on rear and side elevations. The rear elevation is abutted by a two-storey extension detailed to match the side elevation. The gabled north side elevation fronts onto a gravel yard and is abutted by a rendered elliptical arch to the northeast corner.

The setting includes a front gravel area enclosed by a replacement cement balustraded wall, landscaped gardens to the south and west, and a rectangular yard to the north. The yard is enclosed to the west by a range of rendered outbuildings with a two-storey central block abutted by external stone steps, natural slate roof and vertically-sheeted timber doors. A rendered arch adjoins the single-storey section at the north end. The east side of the yard is enclosed to the road by a further single-storey range of outbuildings with corrugated iron roof.

The house was extended by a full bay to the south and to the rear around 1975. By the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1849-52 the house appeared somewhat shorter in length. The third edition map shows an extension to the rear. Griffith's Valuation (1856-64) records the occupier as Robert McMath, leasing from the representatives of John B Stirling, with the house and offices valued at £3 10s on a plot of over 19 acres. The valuation rose to £5 10s around 1863, probably reflecting the rear extension. From 1880 part of the building functioned as a licensed house and shop under Catherine McMath's proprietorship, with the dwelling occupied by her son Robert Alexander McMath. Robert McMath became owner in fee in 1908 and Robert McIntyre took over the pub in 1929. The 1901 census records Robert Alexander McMath as a merchant and farmer, with his mother Catherine as a licensed publican. The twelve-room house was designated first class and described as a public house in the 1901 and 1911 censuses. By the 1930s it was no longer a licensed premises and operated as a house and offices under William McIntyre. Valuer's notes from that period list accommodation comprising four bedrooms, a reception, kitchen, scullery and pantry. Outbuildings included a turf house to the rear and, to the north, a cart house, pigsty, cart shed, byre and stable with loft. The former orange hall was in use as an outbuilding by this time. The McMath family is commemorated in the nearby McMath Memorial Orange Hall, dated 1907, located to the north of Blackhill House, which replaces an earlier building formerly situated closer to the dwelling. The house has been too extensively altered in recent times to be of sufficient interest for listing, although a simple palette of materials has been employed.