Outbuildings to Glynn Park, 102a Prince Andrew Way, Carrickfergus, BT38 7TU

Outbuildings to Glynn Park, Carrickfergus

These stable yard outbuildings, dating from the late 18th century with significant additions made through the 19th and early 20th centuries, stand on the north-east side of Glynn Park, a substantial former country house located approximately 2.5 kilometres north of Carrickfergus Castle. Their principal significance lies in their group value with the main house, Glynn Park, and the former Gate Lodge, all three of which formed part of a single estate until Prince Andrew Way was constructed around 1986, separating the gate lodge from the rest of the property. The stable yard and its buildings were sold off separately from the main house in 2018. The listing covers the outbuildings themselves, the entrance piers, walls, railings, and gates.

The stable yard is entered from Prince Andrew Way through a pair of tall, painted brick piers. The left-hand pier abuts the south-east corner of Outbuilding 4 and retains a decorative painted timber hood on its front face, with a flat concrete coping stone. The right-hand pier no longer has its timber hood; it has a concrete eagle on a flat concrete coping stone and a modern metal post box attached to its south-east side. The gates are modern metal replacements. The yard itself is a roughly rectangular enclosure running south-west to north-east, formed by four outbuildings. Two large 20th-century sheds of steel, concrete, and timber-clad construction have been built to the north-west and north-east of the yard, partially enveloping the rear and gable elevations of Outbuilding 1 and the eastern side of Outbuilding 4. The yard is separated from the main house at its south-west end by Outbuilding 3 and a set of wrought iron gates and railings. On the left (south-west) side of the yard, a pair of painted, roughly rendered brick and stone piers with exposed corbelled brick beneath rough concrete copings mark the entrance to the long north-west shed; remnants of a brick wall that formerly ran between these piers are still visible, now truncated. The larger north-east shed is entered between Outbuildings 1 and 4, its roof projecting beyond both, so that each is partially covered by the shed roof.

OUTBUILDING 1 — FORMER COACH HOUSE

The oldest of the four outbuildings, the Coach House is shown on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832 and was therefore in existence prior to that date, having been built along with Glynn Park House before 1807. It is a storey-and-a-half structure in painted roughly-rendered stone beneath a natural slate pitched roof with terracotta ridge tiles, linear in plan and facing south-east into the stable yard. A single-storey stable block with a pitched roof abuts its south-west gable end. There are no chimneys. The windows are uPVC top-hung replacements, with the exception of a timber multi-pane double-glazed window on the rear north-west wall. Cills are in painted stone or concrete. The door is uPVC. Rainwater goods are a mixture of PVC and cast metal.

On the front (south-east) elevation, reading left to right: a large paired window opening beneath an exposed timber lintel with a metal hook at the centre — the visible brick surrounds beneath the paint suggest this was originally a coach arch that has since been infilled; a centrally placed door opening with a stone carved head over it and one step up; three relatively evenly spaced window openings with painted brick surrounds, the last of which sits below the roof overhang of the adjacent modern shed. The south-west gable is a plain wall with clipped eaves and no openings, abutted by the single-storey stable block. The rear (north-west) elevation is in exposed stone, loosely brought to courses, with some patches of red brick infill and areas of limewash and paint over the stone. This elevation is now entirely abutted along its full length by the modern steel shed, so that it effectively forms an interior wall. Reading left to right: one window opening approximately halfway along the wall, fitted with a replacement timber-framed double-glazed window that now looks directly into the shed; evidence of several blocked-up openings, including two circular former window openings with red brick surrounds; two metal flues rising vertically from the rear stone wall and extracting through the shed's metal roof; three small square ventilation openings at high level on the extreme right side, opening into the attached stables. The north-east gable is in exposed stone, partially limewashed and painted, with clipped eaves and a single opening at first floor level fitted with a uPVC window. The modern shed has been built to within approximately 600 millimetres of this gable wall.

The Coach House was converted to a dwelling around 2018–2019. The original plan form remains legible, and some historic detailing and joinery survives, though the building has suffered during modernisation, including the loss of decorative joinery and ironwork to the stables internally.

OUTBUILDING 2

This outbuilding has a natural slate pitched roof with black concrete ridge tiles and profiled metal rainwater goods. On the front elevation facing onto the courtyard, the walls are painted brick with a painted brick plinth. Reading left to right: a replacement timber half-and-half stable door; a window opening with a timber multi-pane casement window; a large opening with timber sheeted doors hung on wheels from an iron or steel lintel; two half-and-half stable doors, the top leaf timber sheeted and the bottom half a replacement in timber sheeted form; a window opening with a multi-pane timber window; and a timber sheeted door. The north-east gable is a plain wall with no openings in painted roughly-rendered stone with a clipped verge. The rear elevation, facing south-east onto the driveway into Glynn Park, has walls in a mixture of random rubble stone and red brick, a natural slate roof with replacement black ridge tiles, and clipped eaves. Reading left to right: a flush Perspex rooflight; a small high-level opening with a brick surround and no window; a stone and brick buttress or pier; a small cement-faced lean-to with a profiled metal sheet roof; and a sloping random rubble stone buttress or pier.

OUTBUILDING 3

This outbuilding has a pitched natural slate roof and painted rendered walls. It has three wide stable door openings fitted with timber half-and-half doors. The roof overhangs into the stable yard, with modern rafters exposed beneath.

OUTBUILDING 4

Only the south-west side of the original pitched natural slate roof survives; the remainder is missing, and the outbuilding is now largely subsumed beneath the higher roof of the large attached modern shed. The walls are in painted smooth-rendered finish with metal rainwater goods. There is a single opening on the south-west face fitted with a three-over-three timber sliding sash window, and two door openings on the north-west face with half-and-half timber sheeted stable doors.

HISTORY

Glynn Park House appears to have been built before 1807, most probably by James Craig (1759–1833), a local man who served as Member of Parliament for Carrickfergus from 1807 to 1812 and also as a burgess and deputy Lord Mayor of the town. The OS Memoirs of 1839 attribute the building's construction to Craig, dated at "about 40 years since." The house was improved around 1825, and is shown in much of its present form, together with the Coach House to the east, on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832. At that time there was no stable yard immediately to the east of the house; the main arcing drive from the south led directly to the space now occupied by the yard.

The stable yard was created before 1857, during the ownership of John Legg, a prominent local merchant and High Sheriff for the County of Carrickfergus, who acquired the property in 1834. To accommodate the yard, Legg redirected the main drive further to the south, and it is likely that the terrace immediately in front of the house was formed as part of this scheme — an arrangement that also explains why the basement openings on that side are now below ground level. The 1857 Ordnance Survey map also shows that Legg added the single-storey bow-fronted projection to the east of the house and constructed a block on the south side of the yard. Before 1902 another structure was added to the east side of the yard, and a large conservatory had been added to the front of the west wing of the house. The east side of the yard was extended to the rear before 1921, and a square block abutting the house on the west side of the yard had also been built by that date, while the conservatory had by then been removed. At some point after 1981 the southern and western blocks were extended, enclosing the south-west corner of the yard. The large equestrian centre to the east side was constructed in or shortly after 1998. The long shed to the north appears to have been added around the time of the 2018 sale, when the stable yard was separated from the main house and the Coach House converted to a dwelling.

Among the notable tenants of Glynn Park during the Legg family's long ownership were 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 himself served in that conflict as a young man; and William Frederick Coates, a prominent Belfast stockbroker and Lord Mayor of Belfast on multiple occasions (1920–23, 1929–31), who was created 1st Baronet Coates in 1921. In October 1922, during the period of unrest following Partition and during one of Coates's terms as Lord Mayor, 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 property later passed to Major William Baird (1874–1956), then owner of the Belfast Telegraph, whose family lived there from around 1930, remaining until the 1970s.

The early history of Glynn Park is difficult to trace with certainty. Nothing is shown on the site on Williamson's County Antrim map of 1808, suggesting that whatever existed at that stage was relatively modest and quite likely considerably smaller than the building seen today. The present owner believes the house may incorporate part of a medieval structure, and a recent estate agent's brochure referred to it as dating back to the 1600s. The quirky, organic nature of the design suggests a building that has evolved over time, and its setting — immediately beside what was until relatively recently a minor public road — is an unusual one for a relatively grand residence. Given the antiquity of many sites in and around Carrickfergus, it is possible that there were earlier structures on the site, and there is also said to be a tunnel to the south of the building which may indicate earlier activity, though this has yet to be assessed. However, the documentary evidence for something considerably older on this particular site remains lacking, and the physical evidence has not yet been examined in detail.

The irregular arrangement of the fenestration on the front of the main three-storey block — the upper floor openings do not align with those on the ground floor — suggests this section may have been radically altered, possibly raised in height, at some point. The OS Memoirs of 1839 describe the house as a "small but neat looking edifice…3-storeys high, slated, with wings in front," in "a pretty and retired situation," and note that it had been "improved 14 years ago," consistent with Craig's remodelling around 1825 and the elements of Gothic detailing visible in the building today.