16 Belfast Road, Glenavy, Crumlin, County Antrim, BT29 4LL

A detached one-and-a-half-storey redbrick local authority house, built circa 1910 and constructed by Lisburn Rural District Council on land belonging to Ms. Sarah Armstrong. Although a relatively intact example of early twentieth-century local authority housing, the removal of its original external features detracts from its historic character and it does not meet the criteria for listing.

The house is rectangular on plan, facing south, with a single-storey modern rear extension added circa 1990. It is set on an elevated site on the north side of Belfast Road within its own plot, enclosed to the road by hedgerow with a short gravel drive opening onto the road via a pair of wrought-iron gates on iron posts.

The building features a pitched natural slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and a redbrick chimneystack to either gable end. Plastic rainwater goods are fitted to a timber fascia with exposed timber rafter feet. Moulded timber bargeboards to the gables incorporate decorative carved brackets. The walling is redbrick laid in English garden wall bond.

Window openings have camber-headed brick arches with concrete sills and uPVC windows. A gable-fronted entrance porch abutts the single-storey front elevation, topped with a moulded terracotta finial. The porch features a uPVC window to the front and a camber-headed door opening to the west cheek fitted with a replacement hardwood glazed door. The west gable contains a pair of window openings to the upper floor. The east gable has two windows to the upper floor and a single slender window opening to the ground floor.

The single-storey rear extension, built circa 1990, is gable-ended redbrick construction abutting the rear elevation.

Historical records indicate the house was valued at £1 10 shillings and was initially occupied by John A Christie, an agricultural labourer who had resided in Glenavy since at least 1901 in a small thatched dwelling. Christie occupied the property from circa 1916 until the end of the Annual Revisions in 1929. While the Annual Revisions record construction circa 1916, Lisburn Standard records from 1903 indicate the Lisburn Rural District Council were considering tenders for labourer's cottages in the townlands of Ballynadolly, Ballyvannon and Glenavy, with four cottages proposed in Glenavy on land belonging to Mr. Armstrong, though verification of whether this relates to these specific dwellings cannot be confirmed.

The construction of such public housing was facilitated by the Labourer's Acts, first passed in 1883, which enabled local authorities including Lisburn Rural District Council to construct over 50,000 new cottages for landless labourers with state financial assistance. In Ulster, just under 10,000 such cottages were built or improved between 1891 and 1911, with construction continuing after Partition. These were typically simple, functional dwellings erected on the outskirts of major urban areas and villages. The building continues to be occupied as a private residence.