Farm buildings at Red Hall, Ballycarry, Larne, Co Antrim

Farm Buildings at Red Hall, Ballycarry

This is an interesting range of farm buildings that forms an integral part of an important estate and retains elements of architectural distinction, though its quality and value have been diminished by dereliction.

The complex comprises three conjoined yards facing south, along with a detached house and detached store facing north toward the yards. The farm buildings stand a short distance north of Red Hall in the heart of an extensive country house estate, with mature trees in close proximity.

The western yard contains two-storey buildings designed in a classical style with formally treated courtyard elevations of considerable distinction, arranged around three sides of a rectangular court. The yard is entered through a tall screen wall of coursed squared greystone, now missing its gates. The top of the left pier is damaged and the top of the right pier is displaced. The buildings are constructed of basalt with sandstone dressings, though the stonework shows different masonry patterns throughout. Most windows have lost all or most of their glazing. First-floor windows are semi-circular lunettes with keystones, while ground-floor windows are semi-circular arched with keystones and block surrounds. Doorways are rectangular with block surrounds and flat arches, fitted with ledged timber doors. Roofs are of Bangor Blue slates in regular courses with terracotta ridge tiles; the western wing is partly roofless. An open timberwork bellcote surmounts the east wing. Three large coach doorways with segmental arches and block surrounds open into the court. Projecting from the east wing into the court is a tall lean-to open shelter of steelwork with corrugated iron roof.

Extending eastward from the entrance screen of the west yard is a two-storey end wall of the east wing running into a wall of block facing into the middle yard. This wall has segmental arched heads to the first floor and flat arched heads to the ground floor, where windows are blocked with stone.

The middle yard is entered by an arched screen wall of basalt containing blind segmental arched windows and a large segmental arched gateway with modern timber slatted gates. The coping of the screen wall ramps up to form a shaped parapet over the gateway, surmounted by a ball finial and inset datestone inscribed with the initials JM for John McAuley and the date 1869.

The western wing of the middle yard is two-storey rubble construction with a notched brick cornice to part of it. Openings are segmental arched, neatly squared to the southern portion but of rough basalt elsewhere. The north end is enclosed by a single-storey lean-to roofed with asbestos tiles, set against a screen wall of rubble containing a segmental archway leading to the wall of the garden beyond.

The eastern wing of the middle yard is two-storey rubble with red brick dressings to most openings and a notched brick cornice, with a slated roof. Extending to the right of the archway to the middle yard is a two-storey wall common with the east yard, containing a blind segmental window and a flat-arched doorway. Further right is a low rubble wall bounding the east yard, with a pair of square piers with ball finials in the centre; this boundary wall is ruinous at its eastern end.

The east yard has a two-storey wing on a basement storey to the east and a single-storey wing to the north. The eastern wing is hipped and slated with a roof in poor condition, constructed of rubble basalt incorporating areas of white limestone, with red brick segmental arches to openings. The north wing has a lean-to roof of Bangor Blue slates in regular courses, in poor condition, against a screen wall of the walled garden. Its front wall of rubble basalt features wide segmental arched openings with a notched brick cornice. The surface of the east yard is roughly cobbled.

A walled garden to the north of the three yards extends for their whole length. It is constructed of rubble stone with a yellow brick segmental arched doorway on the west side, surrounded by yellow brick pilasters elaborated with notched brickwork, now closed by concrete blockwork. A rectangular timber ledged door in red brick jambs is located at the north-east corner. The garden itself is overgrown with trees and shrubs.

A two-storey detached house stands to the south of the farmyards, facing across a laneway toward the east yard. It is an asymmetrical composition in a free style, with red brick to the ground floor and render above. Windows are mainly sliding sash, 1 over 1, with horns, but of no special interest or quality. To the west of the house is a single-storey rubble stone store with a corrugated asbestos roof.

The farm buildings were constructed in connection with Red Hall in a series of phases, starting to the west and moving eastwards. The rear portion of the west yard appears on the Ordnance Survey map of 1831 as a shallow U-shape; the front portion of the wings was added by the 1858 map, along with the front portion of the middle yard, the east wing of the middle yard, and the rear block of the east yard. The archway over the entrance to the second yard is dated 1869 and inscribed with the initials of John McAuley. An east wing appeared in the east yard by the 1902 Ordnance Survey map; it was still present on the 1921 map but had disappeared by the 1970 map. The two-storey red brick house facing the yards to the south and the single-storey stone store alongside it appear on the 1921 Ordnance Survey map.

The farm buildings stand within the area of a scheduled monument (ANT47:4) and are traditionally believed to occupy the site of an ancient church of Irne, or Irewe, and its cemetery.