19 Balmoral Avenue, Whitehead, Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, BT38 9QA

An attached two-bay one-and-a-half storey Arts and Crafts style house built around 1900–1905, located on the west side of Balmoral Avenue in Whitehead. The building is one of a pair and retains its original plan layout along with many original architectural features both externally and internally.

The house is rectangular on plan with a pitched roof covered in Rosemary clay tiles with clay ridge tiles. Red brick corbelled chimneys with original clay pots are topped with timber bargeboards. The walls are roughcast over a smooth rendered plinth to sill height, with platbands at window sill height and mid-levels. Windows are square-headed timber-framed casements divided 1/2 in smooth rendered surrounds with painted masonry sills.

The principal elevation faces east. The left bay contains an entrance with a square-headed five-panelled timber door with glazed sidelights and transom light, accessed by four concrete steps and flanked on the left by two windows. A timber-framed veranda with a glazed roof is supported on turned timber columns over a painted masonry balustrade; this is now enclosed. The right bay is gabled and shared with the adjoining property. At ground floor, two segmental-headed windows with hood-moulding are set within the gable; a canted corner at the left beneath jettying contains a single window. At first floor, the walling has applied decorative half-timbering with a single window at the right. Arts and Crafts influence is articulated through the half-timber panelling on the façade and the ornate timberwork of the veranda structure.

The south gable has a projecting double chimney-breast at its centre with a round-arched-headed recess containing a timber-framed 1/1 sliding sash window at each floor. To the left, a single timber-framed 1/1 sliding sash window appears at each floor. The left side is abutted by roughcast walling containing a square-headed vertically sheeted timber door leading to an enclosed yard.

The west elevation consists of a shared gable at the left with timber-framed 1/1 sliding sash windows at each floor and a further metal-framed window at first floor right. At the right, a replacement timber-framed glazed door is flanked on the left by a timber-framed 2/2 sliding sash window and on the right by a metal-framed casement window. The north elevation is abutted by the adjoining property.

The building is set within private gardens to the south and east, with an enclosed yard to the west containing a small rendered outbuilding. The site is bounded on all sides by hedging, with access through smooth rendered square pillars supporting a modern steel gate. Cast-iron ogee gutters with round downpipes drain the roof.

Historical records show the building first appearing on the third edition Ordnance Survey map of 1902. Valuation Revision Maps of 1907–1913 number the property as 25 and 21. Valuation books from the 1920s record No. 25 as a 'house and yard' occupied by George E. McKittrick in 1928 (revised a year later to Elizabeth Shaw) and leased from Andrew Ferguson, valued at £17. No. 21 is recorded as a 'house, yard and garden' occupied by W. Clements (revised to Edith Hunter in 1925) and leased from W. E. Hunter, valued at £21.

This house, along with the adjoining property, contributes positively to the Whitehead conservation area. These dwellings are among the finest examples of semi-detached houses from the Edwardian era, built during the period when Whitehead developed rapidly under encouragement from the railway company.