21 Marine Road, Carnlough, Ballymena, Co Antrim, BT44 0HE

A two-storey gabled house with rendered walls, located on a corner site in the main street of the village. The building comprises a principal block with a first floor extending over a ground floor shop, and a lower two-storey return to the rear. The entrance faces east.

The main elevation is four windows wide at first floor. The walls are rendered, lined, blocked and painted, with raised quoins to the extremities, also painted. The roof is laid with Bangor blue slates in regular courses. Three chimneys are present—one at each gable and one near the centre—all rendered and painted with three pots to each chimney, original to the 19th century. Cast iron guttering and downpipes run throughout.

The first floor windows are timber sliding sash, vertically hung, 6 over 6, without horns, set in moulded cement surrounds. On the ground floor, from left to right, there is a window matching the first floor pattern, followed by the entrance door. This is a timber four-panel door with a plain rectangular fanlight, both set in a moulded cement surround. The shop front comprises a central timber doorway flanked by large fixed light windows with nine panes, set between fluted cement pilasters with fluting extending to the capitals. A frieze above carries the shop name in a painted panel, with fluted extremities and an original dentil cornice. The shop door is wooden, panelled and glazed with wired glass, featuring an aluminium handle and letterbox. A sidelight of similar glass stands to the right, a 1988 replacement. To the right extremity of the shop front, raised cement quoins painted black are set into the smooth rendered and lined wall.

The south elevation presents a blank gable rendered as the front, with quoins to the extremities.

The rear elevation facing west comprises a two-storey rendered and slated form, with a lower gabled two-storey return to the extreme left linked by a single-storey slated lean-to to a yet lower two-storey gabled projection to the right. Two small flush rooflights, new, are present. Cast iron guttering and downpipes continue. The left-hand return has a blank gable with a chimney on the apex, two first floor windows on the south side matching the front elevation pattern, and one similar window to the ground floor. To the right of the return, one first floor window sits above the slated lean-to roof, which features a new flush rooflight. An original timber porch door, panelled and glazed, is positioned here. The gabled projection to the right is a rebuilding of the original, extended outwards, with two coupled timber sliding sash vertically hung windows to each floor in the gable, the first floor glazed with translucent glass. An outshot chimney stands on the south wall of the projection, rendered, with a re-used 19th-century pot fitted with a modern cowl.

The north elevation presents a two-storey gable similar to the south gable, with one first floor window matching the front pattern and two small attic windows that are timber casements or fixed lights of four panes. To the right, a low two-storey gabled return has rendered walls with raised quoins to the extremities, with quoins extending at the right-hand side to form the jamb for a gateway to the backyard. The slated roof continues, with a rendered chimney on the right-hand gable carrying one pot. Cast iron guttering and downpipe are present. Two first floor windows match the front elevation; one ground floor window is similar, with a doorway in an unmoulded reveal to the right. This is a wooden four-panelled door with an inappropriate modern handle and a rectangular fanlight of two rectangular panes within margin lights. A side boundary wall beyond a steel yard door comprises harled limestone and brick to the road front.

The building stands set back from the pavement with a lawn in front, bounded by a low red brick plinth wall with concrete copings. Across the main road to the front lies a view to the sea. To the rear, the back garden is grassed and elevated above the ground floor level by concrete steps with new steel railings. The boundary walling to the south is a harled rubble wall; to the west, red brick with concrete coping; to the north, a rendered wall on the garden side with horizontal sliding steel doors opening to the side road.