60 Carnearney Road, Ahoghill, BALLYMENA, BT42 2PL

60 Carnearney Road is a two-storey, five-bay combined house and shop, built around 1850 and situated prominently at the rural crossroads where the Carnearney and Clooney Roads meet, to the south-west of Ahoghill, in the townland of Casheltown, Parish of Portglenone. The architect is not known, but the building's good proportions and semi-formal composition suggest it was deliberately designed rather than informally constructed. The listing extends to the house and shop, the associated outbuildings, the gate pillars, and the cast iron gates.

The main building is oblong in plan, oriented north-east to south-west, and sits tight to the Carnearney Road along that axis. A single-storey lean-to structure abuts the north-east gable end, and a shorter single-storey protrusion is centred on the south-east (rear) elevation, which faces into a walled yard. The yard is enclosed to the north-east and south-west by rubble-stone and roughcast rendered walling, and to the south-east by a range of single- and two-storey whitewashed stone outbuildings.

The roof is duo-pitched with natural slates, black clay ridge tiles, and a projecting eaves course rendered to match the walls. The red brick rectangular chimneys, which have yellow brick corbel brackets and a diamond-shaped decorative detail to both sides, are centred on the gable ends and appear to date from a late 19th century alteration; there are no chimney pots. Walls are rough-dash rendered throughout, with smooth rendered and painted stone toothed quoins defining the corners at all four angles. The building stands on a smooth rendered base plinth. Rainwater goods are a mixture of uPVC gutters supported on cast iron rise-and-fall brackets, and cast iron downpipes.

The principal elevation faces north-west. At first floor, five equally spaced double-hung sliding sash windows each have 2/2 lights in a Regency style with margin panes, exposed box frames, and stone sills. At ground floor, the house and shop have separate entrances. To the left, the house entrance has a six-panelled timber front door — a replacement — with a glazed over-light, flanked by sliding sash windows, the three bays roughly aligning with those above. To the right, the shop is entered through a pair of vertically sheeted timber double doors with an over-light, adjoined by a large picture window with painted boarding that most likely reflects the original layout of three vertical panes behind. Both the doors and window are enclosed by a pilastered timber shop-front with a projecting timber signboard above and a cornice moulding — an authentic Victorian shop-front that adds significant character to the façade. The quoins, shop-front, door frame, exposed box frames, sills, and window reveals are all painted in a contrasting colour.

The south-west gable end sits tight to the Clooney Road and is largely blank, with a single top-hung timber casement window at first floor, offset to the right. Roughcast rendered walls continue with smooth painted quoins, base plinth, and verge band. The yard wall abuts the right side and runs to join the gable end of a single-storey outbuilding at the opposite side of the yard.

The rear south-east elevation is less formal. At first floor there are two smaller timber sliding sash windows, both offset to the right: the left-hand one has 1/2 lights and the right-hand one has 3/6 lights. Neither has stone sills. At ground floor, a single-storey lean-to abuts the main building, with one window boarded up to the right side and evidence of similar openings blocked up and rendered to the left. The lean-to has a black concrete tile roof, projecting uPVC fascia, bargeboards, and rainwater goods, with single uPVC casement windows to its south-east face; the left cheek is blank, and the right contains a sheeted timber varnish-stained door, which is a replacement.

The north-east gable end has the red brick chimney as described above, a projecting timber bargeboard and soffit painted to match the quoins, and a single-storey lean-to that spans the full width of the building. This lean-to has a slate roof, a single timber sliding sash window, and rendered walling matching the main building. The corner of this lean-to is rounded on plan where it turns to meet the rear elevation into the yard; this side contains a smaller uPVC window.

The interior retains its original plan form and good quality historic fittings.

The building forms part of a farmyard complex. The yard is bounded by approximately two-metre-high rubble-stone walling to the north-east, which joins flush to the two-storey gable end of a range of outbuildings at the north-west edge of the site; these step down to single storey and meet roughcast rendered walling along the Clooney Road boundary to the south-east. The outbuildings have informally arranged openings — mainly sheeted timber doors — all facing into the yard, with natural slate roofs. A smaller walled enclosure sits to the north-west corner. The entrance to the site on the Carnearney Road is marked by circular Ulster pillars with conical caps and a pair of cast iron gates.

Directly opposite the building, on the north-west corner of the crossroads, is a small garden plot belonging to the house. This is entered from the roadside through a single cast iron pedestrian gate with fluted gate posts, which lead to an arch formed within the lower branches of mature yew trees, enhancing the setting further. The other two corners of the crossroads have open green space with low-level hedges and fencing.

The building's history is well documented. A structure matching the present building's position and footprint appears for the first time on the revised Ordnance Survey map of 1857, along with a block matching the southern section of the outbuildings. The Second Valuation of 1861 records it as a two-storey house in good repair measuring eleven by six yards, with two single-storey returns — one five by two yards and the other six by two yards — all graded 1B, meaning slated roofs of medium age, slightly decayed. The outbuildings at that time comprised three single-storey structures and a two-storey section graded 1B+, meaning medium age and in sound order; one of the single-storey outbuildings was thatched. Details such as the margin-paned window frames are consistent with a construction date of around 1850.

In 1861 the occupant was recorded as Joseph Hillis, with the O'Neill Estate of Shane's Castle as the lessor. The neighbouring house to the west is marked on the 1857 map as Hillistown, suggesting that Joseph Hillis or a close relative was responsible for building the property. The Valuation Revision of 1873 records a David Hillis as tenant of parcels of land surrounding Joseph's plot. The rateable value was £5 in 1861, rising to £6 by 1864 and £7 5s 0d by 1884, increases that suggest the north-western range of outbuildings was built in stages during those years — they appear on the 1902 Ordnance Survey map. By 1886 the tenancy had passed to Mary Jane Hillis, who is recorded as head of household in the 1901 census. At that time the building was listed as a first-class dwelling with a shop, having eight rooms and serving a family of six, with six outbuildings in the yard. By the 1911 census the description had changed to a private dwelling with ten rooms and nine out-offices — including a stable, cow-house, calf-house, piggery, fowl house, barn, turf house, potato house, and shed. As the building's footprint is identical on the 1902 and 1921 Ordnance Survey maps, the increase in rooms most likely reflects internal re-ordering rather than physical extension. Mary Jane Hillis acquired the freehold from the O'Neill Estate in or just before 1922 and was still the occupant in 1929. The Hillis family appear to have retained the property until at least 1969, when Georgina Hillis is noted as owner and occupier.

The shop closed at some point before 1963, when a Valuation Revision annotation changed the description from House, Shop, Offices and Land to House, Offices and Land. This is consistent with local oral history: residents refer to the crossroads as Hillis' Corner and recall that the shop was a general merchant's store selling household goods including food and sweets, hardware, and burial shrouds, and that it had closed by the 1960s. This building is considered a rare surviving example of a corner shop within a rural setting.