Hillmount, 357 Old Glenarm Road, Drains, Carncastle, Larne, Co Antrim, BT40 2LG

Hillmount is a late Georgian country house dating to around 1800, located near Carncastle on Old Glenarm Road. The building retains much of its original character to its front elevation, despite later Victorian additions to the sides and rear.

The house is a two-storey three-bay gabled structure with a central projecting porch and single-storey and two-storey returns to the rear. The south-east facing entrance front is symmetrical in design. The original entrance is recessed within an elliptical arched opening and comprises a modern 15-pane wooden door with flanking sidelights and a fanlight with radial glazing bars. This entrance is now enclosed by an inappropriate later porch of rectangular plan with white painted smooth plastered walls and crenellated parapets concealing a glazed pitched roof. The porch features a white painted timber panelled door with plain rectangular sidelights and fanlight, and large five-light rectangular timber windows to each side wall.

The main front elevation features a tripartite window either side of the porch, flanked by similar smaller windows above on the first floor, with a single window set in a semi-circular headed opening above the porch. All windows are vertically hung timber sliding sashes, painted white, without horns, set in unmoulded openings. The ground floor tripartite windows are 6 over 6 to the central lights with 2 over 2 sidelights. The first floor tripartite windows are 3 over 6 to the central lights with 1 over 2 sidelights. The single window above the porch is 4 over 4 with radial fanlights.

The entrance front wall is smooth cement rendered and painted white, with rendered quoins at the extremities. The roof is covered in Bangor blue slates in regular courses. Four chimneys are present: one on each gable and two centrally placed in symmetrical arrangement. These are smooth rendered and painted white with projecting cornices. The gable chimneys are of rectangular section, each with two original pots; the central chimneys each comprise a pair of angled stacks, each with an original pot. Cast iron gutters and downpipes return to the end gables. Overhanging eaves are detailed with painted wooden barge boards.

The end gables are smooth cement rendered, lined and blocked, with quoins to the front corner of the left-hand gable. Each gable contains three windows: two to the first floor and one to the ground floor, all rectangular timber sliding sashes, vertically hung, 6 over 6, without horns.

The Victorian additions include a single-storey return flush with the left-hand gable, a 1950s addition with rendered wall matching the main gable, crenellated parapet concealing a lean-to slated roof, and a rectangular timber window. A small lean-to with corrugated asbestos roof and timber door adjoins this.

The two-storey return flush with the right-hand gable is slated and hipped. It features a first floor oriel window of canted form with swept base carried on a projecting corbel, containing four segmental headed timber sash windows vertically hung at 1 over 1 with horns. Two other similar windows are present to the first floor. The ground floor contains four rectangular windows: two sashed as the first floor, and two of modern type.

A single-storey rubble stone slated outbuilding extends from the two-storey return, featuring a later rectangular three-light casement window in a raised cement surround.

The rear elevation of the house is smooth rendered and painted in poor visual quality, incorporating a slated lean-to block with awkwardly placed downpipes and modern flush doors and windows surrounding the rear yard.

Beyond the rubble stone yard wall lies a stable court bounded on three sides by basalt rubble outbuildings with red brick dressings. These include what were originally stables, coach house and coachman's accommodation, all in a run-down state with later inappropriate alterations. The stable court is further enclosed by rubble basalt walling with rough-hewn copings.

The house appears on the first Ordnance Survey map of 1833 and can be dated to circa 1800. The two-storey return to the rear and the single-storey outbuilding projecting from it appear on the second Ordnance Survey map of 1857. The two-storey stables, coach house and coachman's accommodation do not appear until the 1903 map. The single-storey return with crenellations was added in the 1950s.

The house stands in its own grounds in a rural setting, hidden from view behind trees and approached by a winding driveway. It has gardens and lawns to the front and sides, with a gate lodge at the front gateway.