Inisreen, 42 Brown’s Bay Road, Islandmagee, Larne, Co Antrim, BT40 3RX

Inisreen is a two-storey Edwardian house of asymmetrical plan built of precast concrete blocks in imitation of ashlar stonework. The house was constructed in 1906 and is located on an elevated, well-planted site in a spacious rural garden overlooking the main road with distant sea views.

The main entrance faces west. The entrance front comprises three bays across two storeys with an attic. The hipped roof is covered with Westmoreland green slates in regular courses and finished with red terracotta ridge tiles. Chimneys of concrete blocks with moulded cornices are clustered on a cross-plan beyond the ridge, topped with red pots of original date. The walls are rendered in artificial stone with rock-faced quoins to the extremities and rock-faced basal courses; pre-cast concrete cills match the stonework. The cast iron guttering, of moulded profile, is original.

The central bay projects slightly and contains a porch flanked by two narrow fixed lights with wavy heads and decorative leaded glass at ground floor level. Above, two first-floor windows are surmounted by rectangular drip moulding and feature timber sliding sash windows, vertically hung with 1 over 1 panes and horns. A small sashed window of similar design sits at the apex of the gable with similar drip moulding. Corbelled kneelers support the attic gable.

The porch itself is gabled and sits on corbelled kneelers with a roof matching the main house. A plain boarded oak door occupies the wavy-headed opening, surrounded by a projecting coved drip moulding. Buttresses flank each side of the porch doorway. Four semi-circular granite steps lead to the front door. Narrow fixed lights with wavy heads containing decorative leaded glass sit in each side wall of the porch.

To the left, a rectangular projecting bay contains one window per floor, with sashed windows as described. To the right, a curved bay features three windows to each floor, similarly sashed. The north elevation displays a two-storey curved bay with three windows per floor, again with sashed windows, and a flat-roofed dormer above with two-light fixed and side-hung casement windows. A return wall extends from the left end at the same ridge height as the front block but with eaves swept down to a lower level. New PVC downpipes supplement the original cast iron.

The rear elevation of the front block faces east and is almost entirely original work of 1906. A timber ledged door and two sashed windows (as described above) sit to the right. A small single-storey lean-to back porch, a slightly later addition, adjoins this section. This addition is of similar artificial stone but shows open joints in places and cracking above the window and door. The door is timber ledged with a small rectangular fanlight. One window above the back porch is sashed and original. A two-storey end wall of the main rear return contains two ground-floor windows and a dormer in the attic, both of the same design as described.

The south elevation mirrors the character of the entrance front, with two sets of paired windows to each floor of the return and a single window in each floor of the end gable of the front block. Two attic dormers of the previous design occupy this elevation, one in the front block and one in the return. At the easternmost extremity of the return stands a large square section cast iron downpipe with foliated mounts and a wavy section to the hopper head, an original Arts and Crafts style feature. Two new narrow-gauge PVC downpipes have been added discreetly.

To the east of the house stands a long outbuilding, originally a stableblock, connected on the south side by a coach archway on piers dated 1906 in lead numbers. The north side is joined by a yard wall containing a smaller pedestrian doorway with a sliding door, now missing. The coach archway is rebated, though the sliding door is not functioning. The outbuilding, yard wall and archways are of similar material to the main house. The yard-facing wall of the outbuilding contains one sashed window, two ledged timber single doors, ledged double doors, and large sliding doors of the Coburn System, all original. A wall ladder at the south end inside leads to the loft above, lit by a single sash window in the apex of the gable.

The entrance comprises white-painted wrought iron gates of rectilinear pattern with scrolling finials, set between square piers of artificial stonework with domical caps. Curved screen walls terminate in outer piers. A small pedestrian gate of similar style stands at the south boundary. Two concrete block square piers with domical caps sit in the side garden but show no evidence of a gate having been installed.

The boundary walls to south and west are plain, rendered and blocked, with concrete copings.