6 Main Street, Cushendun, Co.Antrim

6 Main Street, Cushendun

A two-storey, two-bay house built around 1832–57, with white-painted rough-cast rendered walls and a pitched slate roof. The building forms part of a distinctive planned settlement in Cushendun village, standing immediately adjacent to a square of seven cottage-style houses arranged around three sides of an enclosed green. Numbers 6, 8, and 10 Main Street were constructed at the same period and are linked at their gable ends by white-painted rendered low walls with vertically sheeted timber gates providing access to rear yards.

The house is rectangular in plan with white painted rough-cast rendered walling set on a contrasting-painted plinth. The pitched slate roof is finished with terracotta ridge tiles and incorporates two chimney stacks at mid-ridge, positioned on three sides with black-painted clay pots and stepped cornices. Timber fascias to the eaves carry half-round cast-iron guttering discharging to circular-section downpipes.

The principal north-east elevation faces the junction of Main Street and Bay Road, overlooking the coast. It is accessed via a tarmac footpath leading to a front entrance porch on the south-east side, containing a vertically sheeted timber door with metal furniture. The porch itself has a pitched slate roof and a narrow multi-pane Georgian-style window to the north-east elevation. The fenestration pattern is irregular: a small tripartite sliding sash window appears to the left on the ground floor, not aligned with the bays above, whilst the first floor features two larger 8/8 timber sliding sash windows with horns on painted sills. All windows are small-pane Georgian-style timber sliding sashes with exposed box frames painted in contrasting colour, giving a cottage character to the facade. The entrance porch with its rendered finish and vertical timber boarding is positioned to the right side of the elevation.

The south-east elevation adjoins Number 7 The Square, with that building's roof overhanging and protruding into the facade of Number 6. The upper section of this elevation rises above the roof line of its neighbour and is finished in white painted rough-cast render, topped by a chimney stack.

The south-west side elevation overlooks a modest yard of concrete and grass, accessed via a rendered gateway at the north-west corner. The yard is enclosed on the south-east by the neighbouring property and on the north-west by a high timber-boarded fence. The rear elevation is abutted by a rear return built at half-landing height, topped by a rendered chimney stack. The right side of the rear elevation contains two 6/6 timber sliding sash windows, one at ground floor and one at first floor level. The south-east elevation of the rear return has a single doorway with a painted timber panelled door with translucent glazed top panes. The north-west elevation walling is blank white painted rough-cast render, whilst the rear return features two multi-pane casement windows on the ground floor and a single small casement window at half-landing height.

The building was formerly used as the local post office until the 1970s and is now a private dwelling. It is situated within Cushendun village, within a Conservation Area and designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, just north of the Glendun River.