4 High Street, Cushendall, Co.Antrim

4 High Street, Cushendall, is an attached two-storey, four-bay late-Georgian-style house built in the early 1800s, most likely between 1834 and 1859, on the south side of the steeply sloping High Street close to the central crossroads of the village. The listing covers the house itself together with the wall, railings and piers to the front. The building is rectangular in plan and sits perpendicular to the street, so it is the gable wall — facing north — that presents itself to High Street rather than the principal elevation. That principal elevation faces east.

The exterior is finished in smooth block-lined render, painted, with stepped plain quoins at each corner of the main house. All window openings on both the east and north elevations are square-headed, set on painted masonry sills with a painted plaster band to the reveals. The windows are 2/2 timber sliding sash with horizontal glazing bars and exposed boxes throughout, at both ground and first-floor level. On the east elevation there is one window bay to the right of the front door and two to the left, the leftmost being the same type but slightly smaller than the others; four window bays at first-floor level align with those below. The north gable elevation, which faces onto High Street, has one 2/2 timber sliding sash with horizontal bars and an exposed box to the extreme left at ground-floor level, and two smaller windows of the same type at first-floor level, the left one aligned with the window below. The roof is pitched natural slate with terracotta ridge tiles. There are two rendered chimney stacks with circular black pots on the east elevation, and a smooth rendered and painted chimney at the apex of the north gable, also with two black pots and a stepped cornice. Half-round replacement uPVC guttering is fixed to a painted timber fascia and terminates in circular uPVC downpipes on the front elevation. The front door opening is square-headed with a metal canopy above; the door itself is a replacement four-panel painted timber door with plain sidelights and a narrow fanlight above, opening onto a single concrete threshold step. To the left side of the house a two-storey outhouse extends along the boundary with a splayed corner. Its walls are smooth-rendered; it has a single timber-sheeted door with a window above that has been blocked with timber sheeting, and other openings blocked with masonry. Its roof is pitched corrugated metal with uPVC rainwater goods. The south elevation to the rear was not visible at the time of survey. The west elevation abuts the neighbouring No. 6 High Street. The building is set within its own grounds behind a modern rendered and painted low-level wall with pillars and modern hooped-top metal railing.

The building forms part of a group of similar houses lining the south side of High Street, most of which were erected in the first half of the 19th century by the landowning Turnly family. Francis Turnly, the proprietor of Cushendall, had travelled to China in 1796 and accumulated a fortune of around £75,000. In 1801 he used this money to purchase the estate of Newtownglens from the Richardson family for £24,000, subsequently renaming the settlement Cushendall. At the time of purchase the village consisted of little more than a number of insignificant cabins, a mill and a bridge, but as the number of tourists travelling through the area — on the way to the Giant's Causeway — increased, Turnly developed it into a coastal resort, erecting hotels such as the Glens of Antrim on Shore Street and numerous commercial properties. Turnly has been described as an eccentric character who "effected extraordinary improvements in buildings and roads on his property."

No. 4 High Street may date from as early as the Townland Valuations of 1834, though it is difficult to confirm this because the accompanying Townland Valuation Town Plan for Cushendall has been lost. It was recorded with certainty on the second edition Ordnance Survey map of 1857 and in Griffith's Valuation of 1859, which noted the property was valued at £2 and 15 shillings and had a forge to its rear. The house originally had a thatched roof. The Turnly family leased it to a Mr James Nicholl, who remained at the address until around 1889 when his son Denis took possession. Denis Nicholl was recorded in the Census of Ireland as a local coal dealer, residing at No. 4 High Street with his brother whom he employed. The 1901 census building return described the house as a second-class thatched dwelling with only two inhabited rooms and a single store as its outbuilding. By the 1911 census the thatched roof had been replaced with a slated one, placing this change at around 1911 or earlier. The Nicholl family continued to reside at the address until 1947, when Charles McLernon, a local baker, purchased the property outright and partially converted it into a bakery. This conversion — and a presumed extension — resulted in a substantial increase in the property's rateable value to £40 by the end of the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936–57). The bakery continued to operate from the rear of the house until 1961, when the rear portion was occupied as a store by J. B. Kennedy Ltd. Charles McLernon continued to be recorded as occupant until the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956–72), at which point the total rateable value had been adjusted to £34. The Ordnance Survey Town Plan of 1903 and the Annual Revisions Plan of Cushendall (1906 to approximately 1935) depicted the house in its current layout.

The buildings along High Street were included in the Cushendall Conservation Area in 1975 — only the second conservation area in the province to have been designated at that time — and in that same year Cushendall was chosen as one of Northern Ireland's four pilot schemes for conservation during European Architectural Heritage Year. In 1972 the Ulster Architectural Heritage Society described High Street as "an outstandingly attractive street, of quite exceptional merit and character, climbing very steeply indeed from the crossing of the main street to Court McMartin, almost every building in it of individual merit apart from the value of the group as a whole; the roofs, gables, doors and windows rise in an irregular staircase up the hillside."

Despite the replacement front door and its modern metal canopy, the exterior of No. 4 retains much of its historic character, including the timber sliding sash windows and stepped quoins. Its unusual aspect — presenting the gable wall to the street — gives it a distinctive presence within High Street, and the building makes a valuable contribution to the Cushendall Conservation Area.