5 High St., Cushendall, Co.Antrim

No. 5 High Street is a two-storey two-bay terraced house built around 1830, located on the northeast side of High Street in Cushendall village on a steep gradient. The building forms part of a terrace of six rendered houses and is situated directly opposite the Curfew Tower at the central crossroads.

The house is rectangular on plan, facing southwest, with a pitched natural slate roof topped with black clay ridge tiles and a rendered chimneystack to the southeast party wall. Cast-iron rainwater goods are fitted throughout. The walls are painted rendered cement.

The front elevation features two bays over two storeys with square-headed window openings. The windows have painted concrete sills and replacement single-pane timber sliding sash windows with convex horns and exposed sash boxes. The central square-headed door opening incorporates a replacement small bipartite timber-frame shop display window and replacement timber glazed panelled door. To the left is a further square-headed door opening with a replacement glazed panelled door providing access to the upper floor.

The rear elevation comprises a gabled-ended two-storey rendered return with a single door opening to the first floor and a further gabled extension. A replacement timber glazed panelled door opens onto steel steps. The building is abutted by No. 7 High Street to the northwest and No. 3 High Street to the southeast.

Although the original windows and doors have been replaced, the dwelling retains its original openings and remains an integral component of the terrace which steps up the hill of High Street. The terrace as a whole adds considerably to the historic village centre setting.

The majority of buildings along High Street were erected in the first half of the 19th century by the landowning Turnly family. Francis Turnly, Cushendall's proprietor, had travelled to China in 1796 where he raised a fortune of around £75,000. In 1801 Turnly purchased the estate of Newtownglens from the Richardson family at a cost of £24,000 and renamed the settlement Cushendall. Turnly was an eccentric character who effected extraordinary improvements in buildings and roads on his property. Cushendall was transformed from little more than a number of insignificant cabins, a mill and a bridge into a coastal resort with the erection of hotels and numerous commercial properties, prompted by an increase in the number of tourists travelling through the area en route to the Giant's Causeway.

No. 5 High Street is depicted on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832. Griffith's Valuation of 1859 records that the house was initially valued at £6 and 10 shillings and was leased by Mr. John Hamilton, although the building was unoccupied at that time. Between the 1860s and 1870s the house was inhabited by Mr. Neil McCurdy, passing to Margaret McAuley in 1879. The 1911 Census described the house as a second-class dwelling consisting of only three inhabited rooms and possessed a piggery, fowl house and shed as rear outbuildings. The McAuley family continued to reside at the address and operated a shop from the ground floor. Under the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland (1936-57) the house was occupied by Michael McAuley and valued at £13. The McAuley family had purchased the house outright by at least 1956 and by the end of the Second General Revaluation (1956-72) the total rateable value stood at £19.

In 1972 a publication by 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." Nos. 3-5 High Street were described as "plain rendered houses".

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, testimony to the special qualities of the village. In that year the village was also chosen as one of Northern Ireland's four pilot schemes for conservation during the European Architectural Heritage Year. No. 5 High Street was subsequently listed in 1976.

The building was renovated around 1996, with works including the conversion of the upper floor into a self-contained apartment whilst the ground floor remained in use as shop premises.