Lemnalary House, 88 Largy Road, Carnlough, Ballymena, Co Antrim, BT44 0JJ

Lemnalary House is a two-storey house with attics and basement, probably dating from the mid-18th century (reputed to have been built sometime after 1737 by John McCollum), of handsome proportions in a plain style. It stands on an elevated, rural site with distant views to the sea, approached from the main road by a pair of circular rubble stone gate piers with conical caps on a slate course, though these piers and wing walls are now in disrepair and without gates. The house is set well back from the road within its own grounds, surrounded by agricultural land.

The building is a five-bay structure with rendered walls and a slated roof. The east elevation, facing the main road, features a roof of Bangor blue slates in regular courses with later metal flashing folded down over the verge to the south gable. Two rendered chimneys with modern red pots rise from the walls. The walls are rendered with a wet dash of crushed stones over a projecting rendered plinth with sandstone weatherings. A moulded sandstone cornice runs along the eaves. The rendering is now new and uniform, having replaced previous harled finish which had spalled to reveal rubble stonework and brickwork of lintels and chimneys. The plinth contains rectangular basement openings; the left one is filled with new timber louvres, the right is blocked with tongued and grooved sheeting. Windows are rectangular timber sliding sashes with 6 over 6 panes without horns, set in exposed frames within plain reveals with projecting sandstone cills. The main entrance is a rectangular four-panel timber door surmounted by a rectangular fanlight with looped glazing bars, all set in a moulded timber frame recessed in plain reveals. The doorway is approached by eight cement-rendered steps laid over a rubble stone core exposed at the sides.

The south gable is rendered as the front, now with new render replacing previous slate hanging which had fallen into disrepair. It contains one ground floor window, a sashed window with horns and projecting concrete cill. Two small attic windows are present: a rectangular fixed light to the right, and to the left a fixed light with a bottom-hung vent. Later metal flashing is turned down over both roof verges. A satellite dish is affixed to the wall.

The rear elevation features a roof as the front and walls rendered with render and slate corbel courses to the eaves. Windows are rectangular timber sashes with horns. A semi-circular headed stair-window above the rear doorway contains a 12-pane fixed light with radial panes to the head. The rear doorway contains a rectangular glazed and panelled timber door in a moulded timber frame. A modern concrete flagged area lies at the rear doorway, with stone steps to the left leading down to the basement; the basement doorway is closed with timber louvres.

The north gable is similar to the south gable, with a rectangular plinth opening containing new timber louvres and two attic windows as on the south side.

The house is approached by a concrete driveway leading from the main road to a plain side gateway to the front grassed garden and continuing to a rear yard, formerly of hard surface but now grassed. To each side of the house at the rear are rubble wing walls with gateways; on the south side these connect with plain outbuildings of no special interest, and on the north side with the ruinous rubble and fieldstone walls of the reputedly original 17th-century house. Standing to the west of the ruined house is a small old rubble stone wash house with a rectangular sheeted door and corrugated sheet roof.

The house retains most of its exterior and interior features. Hugh McCollum is shown as the owner on Lendrick's map of 1782. It was occupied in the early 1800s by Peter Mathewson, Captain of the Glenarm Yeomanry, until 1830, after which it rapidly fell into disrepair and was described by the Ordnance Survey memoirs in 1835 as unoccupied and almost in ruins. Its predecessor was one of only three substantial stone dwellings in the Carnlough area noted by Richard Dobbs in 1683 and is reputed to be the ruinous building which stands to the rear of this house.