Gill's Almhouses, 36a - 36b Ellis Street, Carrickfergus, Co Antrim, BT38 8AY

Gill's Almshouses, 36a–36b Ellis Street, Carrickfergus

This late-Georgian terrace of former almshouses retains its essential character on the front elevation. Number 36 is the south dwelling in a terrace of three identically styled almshouses, built around 1820 as part of Alderman Henry Gill's charitable provision established in his will of 1760. The buildings were formally opened for pensioners on 23 October 1820 to house fourteen elderly men of good character, particularly those "not inclined or given to idleness, or Drunkenness" and "remarkable for their inoffensiveness". The terrace was restored in 1904 and again in 1980 by the James Butcher Housing Association, when the rear elevations and interior detailing were substantially altered. Despite these later changes, the buildings retain architectural interest through the proportion and detailing of their front elevation and possess group value with each other and the other almshouses at Governor's Place, also associated with Alderman Gill.

The structure is a symmetrical two-bay one-and-a-half-storey terrace, rectangular on plan, facing east and located to the west side of Ellis Street. It is roofed in pitched natural slate with blue and black clay ridge tiles, red brick chimneytstacks to each gable with terracotta pots, deep overhanging timber eaves with plain bargeboards, smooth rendered walling with roughcast finish to the first floor and corbelled brick eaves. The principal east elevation features a central entrance door of timber, sheeted with a central glazed pane and original ironmongery set within a smooth rendered architrave, flanked by two wall-head dormers each surmounting a window. Windows are square-headed 6/6 timber casements with smooth rendered architraves and painted masonry cills. The left gable is abutted by the adjacent building at number 34 Ellis Street.

The rear west elevation has been substantially altered, featuring a continuous wall-head dormer with flat roof, smooth rendered walls, and a central replacement door with single glazed pane over a fixed panel. Two small lean-to boiler houses flank the entrance, one to the right of the door and one at the end of the left bay, both with two casement windows (the right windows diminished). Three 1/1 timber casements are positioned at first floor. The entrance is surmounted by a pitched felted canopy supported on timber brackets. The right gable is blank with the original roof pitch projecting to the right, and the continuous wall-head dormer does not extend to the gable wall. Rainwater goods are uPVC.

The buildings appear on the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1832 and are captioned "Gills Almshouses" on the 1902 third edition. Griffith's Valuation of 1860 lists three houses and gardens on the plot, each occupied by lodgers and leased from "Gills Trustees", valued at £3 10 each, with a note indicating they were "free houses and gardens from the trustees of Gills Charity". A plaque on the neighbouring terrace states "Alderman Gill's Almshouses Erected 1761 Renovated 1904", though historical research, including the Gill's Charity Minute Book and Ordnance Survey Memoirs, indicates the almshouses were built circa 1820 rather than 1761.