Glynn Park, Taylor'S Avenue, Carrickfergus, Co.Antrim

Glynn Park is a substantial former country house built around 1800, set off the northern side of Prince Andrew Way approximately 2.5 kilometres north of Carrickfergus Castle. It is a detached, multi-bay building of two and three storeys over a concealed basement, finished in painted ruled-and-lined render, and faces south. Despite the fragmentation of its original demesne through 20th-century road construction and housing development, the house itself remains both authentic and imposing, retaining a wealth of original interior and exterior historic fabric and detailing.

The principal form comprises a central three-bay, three-storey block with a two-bay, two-storey crenellated projection, flanked to the east by a single-storey bow-fronted wing and to the west by a seven-bay, two-storey L-plan wing. There are two- and three-storey returns to the rear. A crenellated screen wall extends westward from the seven-bay west wing, with a late 20th-century glazed conservatory projecting southward from it. The roofs are hipped natural slate with synthetic ridge tiles and several tall rendered red-brick chimneystacks fitted with octagonal clay pots. The hipped roof to the principal three-storey block sits behind a parapet wall, while the roof to the east wing incorporates a bow to the front. Rainwater goods are a mixture of cast iron and replacement metal.

The organic and asymmetrical character of the design strongly suggests that the house evolved over a number of years. The 1839 Ordnance Survey Memoirs record that the building had been improved approximately 14 years earlier, pointing to a remodelling around 1825, and it is to this phase that the gothick detailing — pointed-arched window openings, Gothic-style glazing bars, clustered colonnettes, and acanthus leaf capitals — is attributed.

The south (front) elevation of the main three-storey block has square-headed window openings with painted masonry sills and original 6/6 timber sash windows without horns. The parapet has flat coping, a blocking course, and a plat-band. Rendered quoins are present on the central block only. At second-floor level there are a pair of blind pointed-arched panels with hood mouldings. The main entrance occupies the space between the central projection and the east bowed wing, sheltered by a lean-to natural slate canopy supported on two pairs of decorative wrought-iron brackets. The round-headed door opening contains the original doorcase: a square-headed door opening fitted with a timber door of four raised-and-fielded panels with a central fillet and original brass furniture. The door is flanked by a pair of slender flat-panelled pilasters and a pair of sidelights, with a stepped lintel cornice and an iron-spoked fanlight above. A brass pendant lantern hangs at the centre and the porch floor is laid with encaustic tiles. There is a pointed-arched niche to the right side.

The central projection of the three-storey block has curved external corners with clustered colonnettes to either side, featuring clustered acanthus leaf capitals and annulets. The first floor has a central bipartite window with a central sash box and a pair of 6/6 timber sash windows with Gothic-style glazing bars to the upper panes. The two ground-floor windows are 9/6 with Gothic glazing bars to the upper panes. The ground floor of the west wing has gothick pointed-arched window openings with 6/6 timber sliding sash windows with Gothic-style glazing bars to the upper panes. At the west end of this wing is a door opening with a timber multipane door with a solid base panel and a Gothic-style fanlight. The first-floor windows of the west wing have square-headed openings, likely dating from the late 20th century, with painted masonry sills. The single-storey bowed east wing has a full-height original tripartite bowed window opening with bowed 9/9 timber sliding sash windows flanked by slender flat-panelled pilasters on plinth blocks to a ground-level rendered sill.

The east side elevation of the central block has a single lunette window opening at second-floor level at the far right. A two-storey return abuts the east elevation on the right side, with a timber casement window at first-floor level and two window openings at ground-floor level fitted with metal bars between the reveals. There is an elliptical-headed carriage arch at basement level. The west side of the central block is abutted by the two-storey west wing, with the exposed section having no openings and an exposed chimney rising above the parapet. The west elevation of the west wing is abutted by a 20th-century monopitch extension containing a swimming pool.

The rear (north) elevation is defined by a continuous plain painted render wall of single-storey height running the full length of the building, forming the rear wall of the rear returns. Access to the rear yard is through a sheeted timber door at the west end. There is an oculus window at the apex of the two-storey return. The single-storey section at the east end has a lean-to concrete slab roof. Windows to the rear are a mixture of 1/1 and 2/2 timber sliding sash windows, some fitted with Perspex storm glazing. An octagonal glazed cupola or lantern sits on the east roof slope of the three-storey staircase return. The rear yard contains a single-storey oil tank store with a monopitch tiled roof abutting the yard wall, which has flat concrete coping. There is a 20th-century timber panelled door at the west end of the yard and a painted sheeted timber door with a plain rectangular overlight to the centre. Windows to the yard are mostly a mixture of 1/1 and 2/2 sliding sash windows, with one 6/6 window at the west end and one timber multipane window to the centre.

The house is reached from Prince Andrew Way via rubblestone piers and a boundary wall giving access to a driveway that curves westward to a pair of painted, ruled-and-lined rendered piers with chamfered stone capping stones and ball finials, whose position may have been altered and is likely not original. 20th-century iron gates open onto a drive that passes the south side of the former stable yard to a bitmac forecourt. A lawn lies to the south of the house, reached by a short flight of steps down from the forecourt. Mature woodland bounds the property to the west and open countryside lies to the north.

The early history of the house is difficult to trace with certainty. Variously referred to in the early 19th century as Glyn Park, Glen Park, and Glenpark, it is mentioned by name in a newspaper notice of January 1807, though nothing is shown on the site on Williamson's County Antrim map of the following year, suggesting that whatever existed at that stage was relatively modest. The first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832 shows the building in a form broadly similar to today, though with the lower two-storey west wing depicted as narrower, the bow-fronted east wing absent, and some rear returns apparently not yet built. There was also no stable yard to the immediate east at that time. The first valuation of 1836 records the house as consisting of a house with a projection in front, a north and south wing, return, passage, offices, and a barn, valued at £25 12s 15d.

The newspaper notice of 1807 identifies the owner as James Craig (1759–1833), and the Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1839 attribute the construction to him, dated at approximately 40 years earlier. Craig served as Member of Parliament for Carrickfergus from 1807 to 1812 and also as a burgess and deputy Lord Mayor for the town. He appears to have been primarily resident at Scout Bush on the south-western side of Carrickfergus for much of the period between 1807 and the early 1820s, with Glynn Park occupied by other tenants during those years. In 1822 he advertised Scout Bush to let, had finally leased it by 1825, and by 1826 is recorded as being of Glenpark, where he remained until his death in June 1833. Writing in 1829, Samuel McSkimin described the house as a highly improved villa. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1839 further describe it as a small but neat-looking edifice of three storeys, slated, with wings in front, occupying a pretty and retired situation, and state that it had been improved 14 years earlier — pointing to Craig's remodelling of around 1825, which accounts for the gothick detailing and the irregular fenestration arrangement on the main three-storey block, where upper-floor openings do not align with those at ground level, suggesting the block may have been radically altered or raised in height at that time.

Glynn Park was acquired in 1834 by John Legg, a prominent local merchant and then High Sheriff for the County of Carrickfergus, who in 1835 let it to Cortlandt Macgregor Skinner (1766–1842), a native of New Jersey whose father had been a prominent commander of loyalist forces during the American War of Independence and who had himself served in that conflict as a young man. Skinner resided there until at least late 1838, after which John Legg himself occupied the property until his death in August 1861. The revised Ordnance Survey map of 1857 shows that during Legg's tenure the single-storey bow-fronted east wing was added, the stable yard was created with an additional block to its south, the main drive was redirected to terminate directly in front of the house, and the terrace was formed — this last alteration explaining why the basement openings on the south side are now all below ground level. Some of the rear portions may also date from this period.

After 1861 the property remained in the ownership of the Legg family well into the 20th century but was leased to a series of tenants. These included James Meehan (or Mehan) and Henry Blackburne from around 1862 to 1870; Robert McMurray from around 1870 to 1885; John Shaw Exham from around 1885 to 1894; John B. Pirrie, then Manager of the nearby Barn Mills, from around 1894 to 1902; Lord Burleigh Cecil from around 1902 to 1904; Richard W.F. Cecil from around 1904 to 1909; and William Frederick Coates — the prominent Belfast stockbroker, Lord Mayor of Belfast for the terms 1920–23 and 1929–31, and 1st Baronet Coates from 1921 — from around 1909 to 1930. No major alterations appear to have been made during this long period, though increases in rateable value suggest changes of some kind were made at various points: the value rose from £31 to £35 in 1862, reached £49 in 1907, and fell to £43 in 1918. The 1902 Ordnance Survey map shows that a large conservatory had been added to the front of the west wing by this time, along with a narrow freestanding structure to the rear of the same wing and an additional range on the east side of the yard. By 1921 a small block abutting the house on the west side of the yard had been built and the conservatory had been removed, the loss of the latter possibly accounting for the £6 reduction in rateable value in 1918. At some point between 1921 and 1945 the west wing was extended, with the end section west of the chimney stack either raised a storey or entirely rebuilt in two-storey form.

In October 1922, during the period of unrest following Partition — and during one of Sir William Coates's terms as Lord Mayor of Belfast — a bomb loaded with coarse black powder, with a fuse attached and some flat-nosed bullets, was placed near the hall door of Glynn Park, but fortunately failed to explode. The Coates family are believed to have spent less time at the property after this incident. The house was put up for sale in 1926, and by 1930 Major William Baird (1874–1956), the then owner of the Belfast Telegraph, and his family were living there. A Miss M. Blakely is noted as resident in 1932, and Lady Margaret Coates, widow of Sir William Coates, was back again by 1935. The Baird family appear to have settled there permanently shortly after this, retaining the property until the 1970s. The house was advertised for sale in February 1976 and again in November 1977.

Around 1986 the construction of Prince Andrew Way, a major new thoroughfare, cut through the southern edge of the grounds, severing the end of the main drive and the gate lodge from the rest of the estate and necessitating the creation of the present entrance off the new road. A modern housing development, Glynn Park Close, was constructed on the south-west side of the former estate around 2004. The large equestrian centre to the immediate east of the stable yard was constructed at some point after 1998. The house was offered for sale in 2002 and again in 2013 and was acquired by the present owner shortly afterwards. The stable yard and its associated buildings were sold off as a separate concern in 2018.

The present owner believes the house may incorporate part of a medieval structure, and there is said to be a tunnel to the south of the building that may indicate earlier activity on the site, though neither claim has yet been examined in detail. Given the antiquity of many sites in and around Carrickfergus, the possibility of earlier structures on or near the site cannot be ruled out, but documentary evidence for anything considerably older than the early 19th-century building is currently lacking.

The house shares group value with its former outbuildings and the former gate lodge, both now under separate ownership, and adds considerable interest to the already rich architectural and historic heritage of the Carrickfergus area.